The Noank's Log Part 25

"Ugh!" suddenly exclaimed the Indian. "Boy see! Wish ole chief up there heself."

The others had not noticed so closely, and Guert was not apparently excited. He was gazing steadily in one direction, however, instead of hunting here and there, as he had done at first.

"Isn't a telescope wonderful?" he was thinking. "It brings that flag close up. I can see that her foremast is gone. That looks like another sail, away off beyond her. More than one of 'em. Maybe it's a fleet."

A lurch of the _Noank_ compelled him to lower his gla.s.s and grasp a rope, while he leaned over to shout down his wonderful discoveries.

"Hurrah!" yelled Vine. "Good for Guert!"

"Hard a-lee, then!" roared Captain Avery to the man at the helm.

"Ready about! Strange sail to looard! Up-na-tan, that long gun!

Clear for action!"

It was all very well for him to shout rapid orders and for the crew to bring up powder and shot so eagerly, and get the schooner ready for a fight. It was also well for the captain to go aloft and take the gla.s.s himself. He could see more than Guert could. But what was the good of it all when the wind was dying?

There was hardly air enough to keep the sails from flapping. A schooner could do better than a square-rigged vessel under such circ.u.mstances, but that wind was an aggravating trial to a ship-load of excited privateersmen.

Captain McGrew had been permitted to come on deck, and Guert, as he reached the deck from aloft, was half sure that he had heard the Englishman chuckling maliciously, then heard him mutter:--

"The Bermuda ships never sail home without a strong convoy. These chaps'll catch it."

When Captain Avery himself came down and the opinion of the _Spencer's_ captain was reported to him, he said:--

"From Bermuda, eh? That's likely. We're not far out o' their course, I'd say. Who cares for convoy? I don't. This feller nighest us is crippled and left behind. If it wasn't for this calm, my boy--"

There he became silent and stood still, staring hungrily to leeward.

Perhaps his manifest vexation was enjoyed by his English prisoner, but Captain McGrew very soon put on a graver face, for the sharp-nosed _Noank_ was all the while slipping along, and the ship she was steering toward was almost as good as standing still. So must have been any heavier craft, warlike or otherwise.

An hour went by, another, and the deceptive British merchant flag still fluttered from the rigging of the _Noank_. The strange sail had made no attempt to signal her and there had been a reason for it. She had her own sharp-eyed lookouts, and these and her officers had been studying this schooner to windward of them.

"She's American built," they had said of her. "Most likely she's one of the _Solway's_ prizes. The old seventy-four has picked up a dozen of them. She ought not to be coming this way though. She's running out of her course."

There was something almost suspicious about it, they thought. It might be all right, but they were at sea in war time, and there was no telling what might happen.

"She'll be within hail inside of five minutes," they said at last.

"We've signalled her now, and she doesn't pay us any attention. It looks bad. Her lookouts haven't gone blind."

Not at all. Captain Avery was anything but shortsighted. His gla.s.s had recently informed him that a huge hulk of some sort, only the topsails of which had been seen at first, was steadily drifting nearer.

"Answer no hail!" he had ordered. "We must board her without firing a gun."

Not for firing, therefore, but for show only, the pivot-gun threw off its tarpaulin disguise, and the broadside sixes ran their threatening bra.s.s noses out at the port-holes, while the British flag came down and the stars and stripes went up.

"Heave to, or I'll sink you!" was the first hail of Captain Avery.

"What ship's that?"

"_Sinclair_, Bermuda, Captain Keller. Cargo and pa.s.sengers. We surrender!" came quickly back. "We are half disabled now.

Short-handed."

"All right," said the captain. "We won't hurt you. We'll grapple and board."

The _Sinclair_ was more than twice the size of the _Noank_. She carried a few good-looking guns, too. The grappling irons were thrown; the two hulls came together; the American boarders poured over her bulwarks, pike and cutla.s.s in hand, ready for a fight. All they saw there to meet them, however, was not more than a score of sailors, of all sorts, and a mob of pa.s.sengers, aft. Some of these were weeping and clinging to each other as if they had seen a pack of wolves coming.

"I'm Captain Keller," said the nearest of the Englishmen. "You're too many for us. We couldn't even man the guns. Five men on the sick list."

He seemed intensely mortified at his inability to show fight, and he instantly added:--

"Besides, man alive! six Bermuda planters and their families! They all expect that you're going to make 'em walk the plank."

"That's jest what we'll do!" replied Captain Avery. "We'll cut their throats first, to make 'em stop their music. I'll tell you what, though. I've a lot of English fellers that I want to get rid of. No use to me. You can have 'em, if you'll be good. Captain McGrew, fetch your men over into this 'ere 'Mudian! I don't want her."

"All right! We're coming!" called back the suddenly delighted ex-skipper of the _Spencer_. "What luck this is!"

"Now, Captain Keller," said Avery, "we'll search for cash and anything else we want. Are you leakin'?"

"No," said the Englishman, "we're tight enough. We were damaged in a gale, that's all. There's one of our convoy, off to looard,--the old _Solway_. She lost a stick, too."

"We won't hurt her," said Avery. "What did that old woman yell for?"

"Why," said Keller, "one o' those younkers told her you meant to burn the ship and sell her to the Turks. But the best part of our cargo, for your taking, is coming up from the hold."

The two grim old salts perfectly understood each other's dry humor, and Keller's orders had been given without waiting for explanations.

"Hullo!" said Avery. "Well, yes, I'd say so! There they come! How many of 'em?"

"Forty-seven miserable Yankees," said Keller. "The _Solway_ took 'em out of a Baltimore clipper and another rebel boat. She stuck 'em in on us to relieve her own hold. They were to be distributed 'mong the Channel fleet, maybe. You may have 'em all. It's a kind of fair trade, I'd say."

At that moment the two ships were ringing with cheers. The _Spencer_ Englishmen, the short-handed crew of the _Sinclair_, and, most uproariously of all, the liberated American sailors, who were pouring up from the hold, let out all the voices they had. It was an extraordinary scene to take place on the deck of a vessel just captured by bloodthirsty privateers. The women and children ceased their crying, and then the men pa.s.sengers came forward to find out what was the matter. Ten words of explanation were given, and then even they were laughing merrily. The dreaded pirate schooner had only brought the much needed supply of sailors, and there was no real harm in her.

A search below for cash and other valuables of a quickly movable character was going forward with all haste, nevertheless, while the liberated tars of both nations transferred themselves and their effects to either vessel.

"Not much cash," said Captain Avery, "but I've found a couple of extra compa.s.ses and a prime chronometer that I wanted. The prisoners are the best o' this prize, and how I'm to stow 'em and quarter 'em, I don't exactly know. We must steer straight for Brest, I think."

"Captain," said Guert, coming to him a little anxiously, "off to looard! Boats!"

The captain was startled.

"Boats? From the seventy-four?" he exclaimed. "That means mischief!

All hands on board the _Noank_! Call 'em up from below! Tally! Don't miss a man! Drop all you can't carry!"

The skipper of the _Sinclair_ was looking contemptuously at his bewildered pa.s.sengers.

"The whimperingest lot I ever sailed with," he remarked of them; and then he sang out, to be heard by all: "Captain Avery! Did you say you were going to scuttle my ship, or set her afire?"

"Both!" responded the captain. "Jest as soon's I get good and ready.

I'll show ye!"

"You bloodthirsty monster!" burst from one of the older ladies. "All of you Americans are pirates! Worse than pirates!"