The Cruise of the Frolic Part 23

I must say that after the strange misgivings I had experienced in the early part of the day, when the polacca-brig first hove in sight, I was well satisfied to see the yacht put in a perfect state of defence. It was more than possible that the stranger might after all be an honest trader, and that her crew might be not a little surprised to find an English yacht with so formidable an appearance. Still again, I have always seen the wisdom of not despising an antagonist, and of being as prepared as circ.u.mstances will allow for any emergency.

The boat, a heavy launch, was meantime advancing towards us. I examined her narrowly with my gla.s.s; she had what looked very like a gun mounted in the bows, though a capote, or piece of dark canvas, was thrown over it. She pulled twelve oars, beside which three or four other people sat in the stern-sheets. I observed Porpoise, who had been, as may be supposed, attentively watching the boat, go up to the foremost gun, and draw the shot.

"Carpenter," said he, to Chips, "bring me up a shovel of old nails and bits of iron."

The articles in question were soon brought to him, and he proceeded forthwith to load the gun with them up to the muzzle.

"Sleet," said he, "you have charge of this gun; if our friends there show fight, and I give the word, slap this mouthful right in among them; it will soon bring them to reason, I guess."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the old man, slapping the breech of his gun with a quiet smile, "I'll make her speak, depend on't."

Thus prepared, we awaited the arrival of the suspicious-looking strangers. Had there been any wind, we might easily have prevented their coming on board by running out of their way, but as it was we could not help ourselves without fighting. In a few minutes more they pulled alongside, rather awkwardly; however, we did not order them to keep off, as it was agreed it would not be wise to show any suspicion of them. They were all dressed in the Greek costume; one of the men who sat in the stern-sheets, a full-bearded fellow, with a capote thrown over his shoulders and a fez on his head, stood up in the boat, and in broken English asked to come on board.

"Oh! let him," said Hearty, who began to fancy we had been over-cautious. "There can't possibly be any harm."

The side was accordingly manned, and our friend with the capote, followed by two less ill-looking fellows, stepped unceremoniously on board.

"I speak to de captain," said the stranger, in a blunt tone.

"I am the captain, at your service," answered Porpoise, standing before him, and preventing his farther advance on deck.

"Oh! I come to know where you come from," said the Greek stranger, casting his eyes furtively round the deck, as if to discover the state of defence in which we might be.

The look of our st.u.r.dy fellows, with their cutla.s.ses by their sides, might possibly have surprised him, and at all events he must have seen that there was little chance of surprising us.

"We come from England," answered Porpoise, bluntly. "A civil question requires a civil answer, but I don't know by what right you ask it."

"Where you bound for?" continued the Greek, not noticing the last remark it seemed.

"Malta, Alexandria, Smyrna, and a few other places up the Levant," said Porpoise.

"Ah! will you take letter for me? You do me great favour," said the Greek, putting his hand in his bosom.

While the Greek was speaking, I had been eyeing him narrowly from the after-part of the vessel, where I had placed myself. Most of my readers have heard of the famed Vanderdecken, the terrible Flying Dutchman, who in his phantom ship goes cruising about to the southward of the Cape of Good Hope, sailing right into the eye of the heaviest gale. When he falls in with a vessel, he comes aboard, and requests a packet he presents may be taken on sh.o.r.e. Just such another as Vanderdecken did our present visitor appear, except that the Dutchman is habited in a somewhat different costume to the Greek, in broad-brimmed hat, big-b.u.t.toned waistcoat, and wide breeches. By the way Porpoise looked at him, I had a notion some such idea was pa.s.sing through his mind.

Perhaps he suspected that the gentleman had a pistol instead of a letter inside the folds of his vest. The boat's crew meantime sat scowling at us, and surveying the vessel with a no friendly look; I guessed, indeed, that nothing would have given them greater pleasure than to have been able to jump on board, and to cut all our throats.

"We shall be happy to take your letter or any commands on sh.o.r.e,"

answered Porpoise, putting his hand in his pocket in imitation of the Greek.

The stranger furtively eyed the movement of his hand, as much as to say, "Why, have you got a pistol there likewise?"

However, withdrawing his own hand from his bosom, he exclaimed, "Ah! I have by some omission left my letter on board."

The man spoke with as downright an English p.r.o.nunciation as I ever heard in my life. Pretty well for a Greek, thought I, stepping forward to examine his features more narrowly. I had had my suspicions from the time he stepped on board; so, it appeared, had Tom Newton. There could be very little doubt about the matter; the man who stood before us in the guise of a Greek, was no other than the _ci-devant_ pirate--slaver-- smuggler, the outlaw Miles Sandgate. I thought his keen eye glanced at my countenance for a moment, as if he recognised me; but so completely did he maintain his self-possession, that he did not exhibit the slightest sign of fear or hesitation. He bit his lips though, as if he found that he had betrayed himself by speaking English too fluently, and he instantly fell back into his former mode of expression. Porpoise had either not remarked his slip of the tongue, or thought it best not to comment on it.

"I go send letter aboard," he continued, stepping back a pace as if to be ready to spring into his boat. His crew in the mean time had begun to vociferate something I could not understand. He replied to them in the same language, and I have no doubt it was to tell them that their enterprise was fruitless, and that it was not quite so easy to catch the crew of an English yacht napping as they might have supposed. He still hesitated to take his departure. Some plan or other was pa.s.sing through his fertile, ever-active brain. Perhaps he did not suspect that I had recognised him. However, whatever might have been his intentions, he was summoned hurriedly into the boat by his crew. He turned hastily round and cast his eye to the northward, so did I and Porpoise. There, rising out of the water as it were, was a small white cloud, which, as we looked, every instant increased in size.

"You'd better shorten sail, or you'll repent it," exclaimed the seeming Greek, as he leaped into his boat.

The crew pulled l.u.s.tily away in the direction of their own vessel.

Nothing comes on so rapidly and gives so little time for preparation as does a white squall in the Mediterranean. Porpoise, taking the advice offered, gave the necessary orders. All hands rushed to the halliards and downhauls, but before a rope could be let go the squall was upon us.

A drill of white foam came rushing towards the cutter, driven on by some irresistible power, which at the same time curled up the whole hitherto calm and shining sea into rolling, breaking waves. Our eyes were almost blinded with the salt mist which dashed over us. Terrific was the blow we received. The cutter having no steerage-way offered a dead resistance to it. Over she went as does a stately tree, its stem cut through by the woodman's deadly axe and saw.

"Hold on! hold on for your lives!" sung out Porpoise.

There was good reason. I thought she would never rise again. The water rose up her decks. We began to look at boats and spars as the only hope of safety. Then shrouds and stays and bolts gave way, and the stout mast cracked off at the deck with a loud crash; and the little craft rising on an even keel floated in safety, but presented a forlorn wreck compared to the gay and gallant trim in which she had lately appeared.

Not a moment was to be lost in ascertaining whether the cutter had received any vital damage, and in endeavouring to put her to rights.

Everybody was busily engaged in the work. Hearty and our landsmen friends took the matter very coolly.

"Just sing out where you want us to lend a hand, and we are four men,"

cried Hearty, pulling and hauling away with a will, while we were getting in the wreck of our mast and spars.

The drag of the rigging astern brought the vessel up into the wind's eye, and then she lay pitching and bobbing away into the short seas, sending the spray flying over us like a regular shower-bath, and surrounding us with a mist impervious to the sight. It was heavy work, and as part of the bulwarks had been knocked away there was no little danger of being washed overboard. Where, however, all labour with a will, the hardest task is soon performed; and no fellows could have worked harder than did our crew of yachtsmen. Before, however, the craft was in any way put to rights, the squall and its effects on the sea had completely pa.s.sed away, but night coming down had shrouded us in total darkness. No one had thought of the Greek brig or her boat, and now not a glimpse of either was to be perceived.

What had become of her? Had the boat with the rascal Sandgate been swamped? Had the brig been caught by the squall and gone down? Such had been the fate of many a craft in the Mediterranean. When we had got the yacht somewhat to rights we made inquiries among the men, but no one had observed her. Old Sleet, it was said, had watched the boat pulling away for her even during the hurly-burly of the squall. I therefore called him up to examine him more particularly.

"When we was on our beam-ends, and I thought we was over for good, still I couldn't help keeping my eye on the boat," said the old man; "I can't say as how I liked the look of that ere curious chap the Greek captain who came aboard us, and as for his crew, a bigger set of cut-throats I never saw. Well, thinks I to myself, if the boat goes to the bottom, and all her people goes in her, there's no great harm done: but if she floats and gains the brig, they may just come back when we are not prepared for them, and try to knock us all on the head; but, says I to myself, there's no use talking about it, for the gentlemen won't believe such a thing possible, and I shall only get laughed at for my pains."

I was very much inclined to agree with the old man, that if our Greek friend had escaped drowning, and could discover our whereabout, he would be apt to try his hand at playing us some scurvy trick; but I said nothing to this effect. I, however, resolved to speak to Porpoise, so that we might be prepared to resist any attack he might attempt to make on us. Porpoise was rather inclined to laugh at my fears.

"My belief is that the fellow went to the bottom," he replied. "Serve him right, too, if he is the rascal you suppose him; or if he got aboard his ship he saw enough of us to know that we should prove rather a tough morsel, should he attempt to swallow us."

A council of war having been called, it was resolved that we should try to get back to Gibraltar as fast as we could. To effect this, however, it would be necessary to rig jury-masts, and this could not very well be done till daylight. We proposed turning the cutter into a schooner or lugger, and happily, as we had saved most of our spars and canvas, we expected to have no great difficulty in getting sufficient sail on her to navigate with ease the poor little closely-shorn craft.

I have often had in my naval career to pa.s.s through nights of toil and anxiety, and this gave every promise of being one of that character. In a few hours we had gathered in all our ruffled feathers, or, in other words, our masts and spars and sails and rigging; and having stowed them along the decks as best we could, there we lay floating helplessly like a log on the water. Not having discarded my suspicions of the polacca-brig, notwithstanding my fatigue I felt no inclination to go to sleep. I now was left in charge of the deck while Porpoise and the rest of my messmates turned in, all standing. I walked the deck for some time, ever and anon turning my gaze upward to the dark blue vault of heaven glittering with a thousand stars, each but a centre of some mighty system, each more complex and marvellous, probably, than our own.

I thought of the all-potent Being who made them as well as all the wondrous specimens of animal life which dwell on this globe we call our own, and my heart swelled with grat.i.tude to Him who had preserved me and my shipmates from the danger to which we had been exposed. My spirit, as I thought, seemed to take its flight through the calm atmosphere, and to wander far far away among those distant spheres. How long it was away I know not. I was not conscious of the existence of my body on the surface of the globe. A splash aroused me from my reveries. It was caused by a fish leaping out of its liquid home to avoid some monster of the deep wishing to make a supper off it. It called me back to earth and things earthly. My first impulse was to cast my eye round the horizon. It was rather a circ.u.mscribed one at that hour of darkness.

Once I made the full circuit and could see nothing. I took a few more turns on deck, and again I swept my eye round the watery circle more slowly than before. As I reached the south-eastern point of the heavens I was certain I saw a dark object. I rubbed my eyes. The sails of a vessel appeared before me, rising up like a thin dark pencil-line against the sky. I wetted my fingers and held up my hand. The cold struck it on that side. Whatever she might be she was well to windward of us. I took the night-gla.s.s, which hung on brackets just inside the companion-hatch. She was still too far off to enable me to make out what she was. I had not, however, forgotten my suspicions of the polacca. The stranger was evidently approaching us. If she was the Greek, her crew would scarcely resist the temptation of attempting to plunder us. Still I felt that my suspicions were almost absurd, and I did not like to arouse my friends without some better grounds for my fears. I, however, felt it would be wise not to run the risk of being taken altogether unprepared. I therefore went up alongside old Snow--so we called him, though he was young enough to be old Sleet's son. I was not long in waking him up to the proper pitch of caution by narrating a variety of stories about pirates and slavers and savages, and such like gentry, with a due admixture of instances where people from carelessness were caught napping and lost their lives.

"Now," said I, "let us get these spars cleared away enough to work the guns. The watch on deck will do it without rousing the rest. We'll have a supply up of round-shot and ammunition. The people have not restored their pistols and cutla.s.ses to the arm-chest. Send a couple of hands to collect them all ready, and then if yonder stranger proves to be the polacca, and wishes to taste our quality, we'll let her have her will, and show her what we are made of."

I spoke thus confidently that there might be no risk of taking any of the pluck out of the people. I cannot say, however, that I at all liked the notion of a brush with the well-manned and probably well-armed polacca-brig in our present dismantled condition, however little I might have feared her at close quarters had we been all to rights. I watched the approach of the stranger, therefore, with no little anxiety. She was evidently bearing right down upon us, though, as there was but little wind, her progress was slow. The hours of the night wore on. I was leaning against the wreck of the mast which lay fore and aft along the deck, and at length I fell asleep. I do not know how long I had slept when I heard Porpoise's voice close to me.

"Hillo, Brine! what in the name of wonder is that away there to windward?" he exclaimed.

"The polacca-brig, there's no doubt about it," I answered, as I beheld a vessel like a dark phantom stealing up towards us. I then explained to him the preparations I had made in case the brig should really be of the piratical character we suspected, and at the same time inclined to attack us. This relieved his mind not a little. My belief, however, was that the Greek might not have seen us. She might, of course, have calculated our whereabouts. Perhaps even now she might not see us.

Perhaps, also, as Porpoise suggested, if the boat was swamped in the squall, the rest of the crew would probably cruise about to look for their companions. He agreed with me, therefore, that we need not yet rouse up Hearty and our other two friends. By the by, in consequence of all the delays we must endure, I was doubly glad that we had not told Hearty of Miss Mizen's expedition to Malta. It would have made him undergo them with much less than his usual philosophy, I suspect.

"I doubt if even now the brig sees us," said I as I watched her through the night-gla.s.s. So low down in the water as we were, she was very likely to miss us.

"See, she is pa.s.sing us," exclaimed Porpoise, after we had watched her for some time. "It is just as well she should miss us, for in our present state we could not exactly do ourselves justice."

"Perhaps after all our friends may be very well disposed, and in no way inclined to do us any harm," said I, not that I could in reality divest myself of the idea that the polacca was commanded by Sandgate, and that he would have delighted to do us all the mischief in his power. With daylight, however, I don't think I should fear him, even now, I thought to myself.

It still wanted nearly an hour to sunrise, and daylight in that clime does not come very long before the glorious luminary of day rushes up from his ocean bed. We hoped by that time that the brig would have pretty well run us out of sight. Still neither Porpoise nor I felt inclined to go below again. We intended, indeed, to rouse out all hands to get up the jury-masts the moment we had light to work by. We, however, were not so clear of danger as we fancied. The brig had got about a mile to leeward of us, when we saw her brace up her yards, and, close-hauled, she stood back so as soon to fetch us. There was no longer any time to spare.

"Rouse up all hands fore and aft," sung out Porpoise, with a stentorian voice.

In a minute every one was on deck busily employed in casting loose the guns, in priming pistols, and buckling on cutla.s.ses.