The Freebooters Part 46

"Yes, Master Lovel," the sailor answered, as he raised his hand to his woollen cap; "it has veered round two points."

As the individual who answered to the pleasant name of Lovel is destined to play a certain part in the scenes we have undertaken to describe, we ask our readers' permission to draw his portrait. Physically, he was a man of about fifty, nearly as broad as he was tall, and bearing a striking resemblance to a barrel mounted on feet, but for all that gifted with far from common strength and activity; his violet nose, his thick lips, and highly-coloured face, with large red whiskers, gave him a jovial appearance, to which, however, two small grey and deep-set eyes, full of fire and resolution, imparted something skeptical and mocking.

Morally, he was an honest, worthy man, open-hearted and loyal, an excellent sailor, and loving only two things, or rather beings, in the world: his Captain, who had brought him up, and, as he often said, had taught him to make his first splice by administering tobacco to him, and his ship, which he had seen built, which he had gone aboard when ready for sea, and had never quitted since.

Master Lovel had never known either father or mother; hence he had made the brig and his Captain his family. All his loving faculties, a long time driven back and slumbering in his heart, were so fully concentrated on them, that what he felt for both went beyond the limits of a reasonable affection, and had acquired the veritable proportions of a gigantic fanaticism. However, the Captain, of whom we shall soon speak, amply requited the old sailor's friendship.

"By the way, Lieutenant, I ask your pardon," the helmsman continued, doubtless encouraged by the manner in which his officer had spoken to him; "do you know that we have been making a precious queer navigation the last few days?"

"Do you think so, lad?"

"Hang it, sir, these continued tacks, and that boat we sent ash.o.r.e yesterday, and has not yet returned--all that is rather singular."

"Hum!" the officer said, without any other expression of his opinion.

"Where may we be going, Lieutenant?" the sailor went on.

"Are you very anxious to know?" Lovel asked him, with a half-sweet, half-bitter tone.

"Well," the other said, as he turned his quid in his mouth, and sent forth a stream of blackish saliva, "I confess that I should not be sorry to know."

"Really now?--well, my boy," the old sailor said, with a crafty smile, "if you are asked, you will answer that you do not know; in that way you are certain of not compromising, and, before all, of not deceiving, yourself."

Then, after looking for an instant at the helmsman's downcast face on receiving this strange answer, he added--"Strike eight bells, my dear; there is the sun rising over there behind the mountains: we will call the watch."

And, after restoring his pipe to the corner of his mouth, he resumed his walk. The sailor seized the cord fastened to the clapper of the bell, and struck four double strokes. At this signal they knew so well, the men lying in the forecastle sprang up tumultuously, and rushed to the hatchway, shouting--

"Up with you, starboard watch; up, up, it is four o'clock. Starboard watch, ahoy!"

So soon as the watch was changed, the master gave the necessary orders to dress the vessel. Then, as the sun was beginning to rise above the horizon in a flood of ruddy vapour, which gradually dispersed the dense fog, that had enveloped the brig throughout the night, like a winding-sheet, he set a man to the foretop to look seaward, and examine the coast they were sailing along. When all these various duties had been discharged, the old sailor resumed his walk, taking a look every now and then at the masts, and muttering between his teeth--"Where can we be going? He would be very kind, if he would tell me: we are making a regular blind man's traverse, and we shall be very lucky if we get out of it safe and sound."

All at once his face brightened, and a glad smile spread over it. The Captain had just left his cabin and come upon deck. Captain Johnson was at this period a man of hardly three-and-thirty years of age, above the middle height; his gestures were simple, graceful, and full of natural elegance; his features were masculine and marked, and his black eyes, in which intelligence sparkled, gave his countenance an expression of grandeur, strength, and loyalty.

"Good morning, father," he said to Master Lovel, as he cordially offered him his hand.

"Good morning, lad," the latter replied; "did you sleep well?"

"Very well, thank you, father. Is there anything new?"

At this question, apparently so simple, the lieutenant drew himself up, raised his hand to his hat, and answered deferentially--

"Captain, there is nothing new on board. I tacked at three o'clock, and, according to your orders, we have been sailing as close to the wind as we could, at a rate of six three-quarter knots an hour, under foretop sails, and always keeping Galveston Point on the larboard quarter."

"That is well," the Captain answered, as he took a glance at the compa.s.s and the sails.

In all matters connected with duty, Master Lovel, in spite of the reiterated remarks of his Chief, constantly maintained toward the latter the tone and manner of a subordinate to his superior. The Captain, seeing that the old sailor could not be turned from this, ended by paying no attention to it, and left him free to speak as he thought proper.

"By the way, Captain," the Lieutenant continued, with some hesitation, "we are drawing near the gut; do you intend to pa.s.s through it?"

"I do."

"But we shall be sunk."

"Not such fools."

"Hum! I do not see how we shall escape it."

"You will see; besides, must we not go and pick up our boat, which has not yet returned?"

"That is true; I did not think of it."

"Well, you see; and our pa.s.sengers?"

"I have not seen them yet this morning."

"They will soon come on deck."

"A ship in sight," the watch shouted.

"That is what I was waiting for," said the Captain.

"To tack?"

"On the contrary, to pa.s.s without a shot in front of the fort that commands the entrance of the bay."

"I do not understand."

"All right; you soon will."

And speaking to the look-out man, he said--

"In what direction is that ship?"

"To starboard, to windward of us; it is coming out of a creek, in which it was hidden, and steering straight down on the brig."

"Very good," the Captain answered; then, turning to Lovel, he continued: "This ship is chasing us; we shall, by constant short tacks, pa.s.s the fort and the battery which crosses fire with it. The Mexicans, who are watching us, feeling convinced that we cannot escape their cruiser, will not take the trouble to fire at us, but let us pa.s.s through without offering any obstacle."

And, leaving his lieutenant astounded at this singular line of argument, which he did not at all comprehend, the Captain went on the quarterdeck, and leaning over the gangway, began carefully watching the movements of the ship signalled by the lookout. An hour pa.s.sed thus, without producing any change in the respective position of the two ships; but the brig, which had no intention of getting too far away from the cruiser, did not carry half the sail it could.

The men had been quietly beaten to quarters, and thirty powerful sailors, armed to the teeth, were holding the running rigging, ready to obey the slightest signal from their Captain. For more than an hour the brig had been approaching the coast, and the Captain, being now compelled to skirt a submarine reef, whose situation was not positively known to him, ordered sail to be reduced, and advanced, sounding lead in hand. The cruiser, on the contrary, was literally covered with canvas, and grew momentarily larger, while a.s.suming the imposing proportions of a first cla.s.s corvette; its black hull could be clearly distinguished, along which ran a long white stripe, containing sixteen portholes, through which pa.s.sed the muzzles of her Paixhan guns. On the sh.o.r.e, to which the brig was now close, could be seen a great number of persons of both s.e.xes, who, shouting, yelling, and clapping their hands, eagerly followed the incidents of this strange chase. Suddenly a light cloud of smoke rose from the bow of the corvette, the sound of a gun was dully heard, and a Mexican flag was hoisted at the peak.

"Ah, ah," Captain Johnson said, as he mechanically chumped the end of a cigarette held between his teeth, "she has at length decided on throwing off her incognito. Come, lieutenant, politeness deserves the same; show her our colours; hang it all, they are worth showing."

A minute later, a large star-spangled flag was majestically fluttering at the stern of the brig. At the appearance of the United States colours, so audaciously hoisted, a shout of fury was raised aboard the Mexican corvette, which was taken up by the crowd a.s.sembled at the point, though it was impossible to tell, owing to the distance, whether they were shouts of joy or anger.

In the meanwhile the sun was beginning to rise, the morning was growing apace, and there must be an end to the affair, especially as the corvette, confiding in her strength, and now almost within gunshot, would not fail to open fire on the American vessel. Strange to say, the garrisons of the fort and the battery, as the Captain had foreseen, had allowed the brig to double the point without trying to stop it, which it would have been most easy for them to do, owing to the crossfire.

The Captain gave his lieutenant a sign to come to him, and bending down to his ear, whispered something in it.