The Noank's Log Part 34

"That he may not choose for himself," said Rachel. "It hath come, heretofore, to many of my own people, Quakers, thou callest them, to die by the fire, and by the water, and by the hempen cord, because they would not give up their freedom to worship G.o.d in their own way. I think it was well with them. Let thy son die as it shall be given him in the hour of his appointing."

Deep and solemn had grown the tones of the enthusiastic old Friend, but Mrs. Ten Eyck dropped her knitting and went to a window to look out long and wistfully toward the harbor.

"When will he come sailing in?" she thought. "Am I ever to see him again? Oh! the war is so long, and the sea is so wide, and I love him so!"

Very beautiful and very long-suffering was the patriotism of the American woman of that day. Bitter indeed was the cup that many of them had to drink. Costly as life itself were the sacrifices that they were called upon to make. Well might such a son as Guert, keeping his watch on deck at the end of that long, pleasant day, be thinking only of his mother, rather than of the dangers that surrounded the _Noank_.

Groot, the pirate, came and sat down by him and asked him curious questions concerning the way people lived in America.

"I can't get back to our old farm on Manhattan Island," Guert told him, "until Washington's army marches in again. Up-na-tan and Coco came away with me when we were beaten."

Groot asked then about the New York battles and about New London.

"I always believed," he said, "that I must always live on the sea, but I've been thinking. I can never be safe afloat. I sail with a rope around my neck, although I was never a pirate of my own free will. It is growing in my mind that I had better find some kind of harbor on sh.o.r.e. I shall have prize-money this time. I can make a start at something. I believe I could go away back into one of your states and live a new life."

"That's it," said Guert. "You could go among the Mohawk Valley Dutchmen, if Manhattan Island is too near the sea. You'd be hidden there, safe enough. n.o.body would ever come for you."

"I'll think of it," said Groot. "No man knows how long he is going to live, anyhow."

So there was rejoicing, with mourning also, and anxiety, upon the land, and it was a time for serious thinking on the sea; but at this moment the forward lookout startled all on board by the vigorous voice with which he sang out:--

"Sail ahead! Close on the larboard bow! Big three-master! No light showing!"

"All hands away!" roared Captain Avery. "Port your helm, there! Men!

If it's an armed ship, it's too late to get away. We must grapple and board her, for life and death. Get the grapplings ready! Ship ahoy!"

The response was the report of a shotted gun and an angry shout:--

"We know you! Keep away, or we'll sink you! We can do it!"

"British trader," thought Captain Avery. "He's told us all we need to know. He's a strong one, I guess, and he could maul us badly. Our only chance is to close with him." Then he shouted to his crew:--

"Pikes and cutla.s.ses! All hands be ready to follow me! Hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" came wildly back, and the three guns of the schooner's broadside, with the long eighteen, answered the stranger's challenge.

They were well enough directed, and so was the reply that came from half a dozen English pieces, but these, quite naturally at so short a range, were aimed too high. Down came both of the topmasts of the _Noank_, while her hull and ship's company were unhurt. She was a crippled craft in a moment, but she still had enough of headway to carry her alongside of her bulky antagonist before her guns could be reloaded.

"Throw the grapnels!" shouted Captain Avery. "Haul, now! All aboard!

Fore and aft, and amidships! Give it to 'em!"

Down he went the next instant, flat upon the deck of the English ship, as he sprang over her bulwark. Down at his side fell the British sailor by whose cutla.s.s he had fallen, and over both of them sprang Guert Ten Eyck with Up-na-tan and Coco reaching out to hold him back and get in before him.

"I hit him!" shouted Guert, fiercely.

"Forward! Down with 'em! The ship is ours!"

Right here, amidships, the English crew had supposed to be the strength of their a.s.sailants and they had rushed desperately to meet it. They had not heard, however, the last command of Captain Avery, and his fore and aft boarding parties went over almost unopposed.

"We are surrounded!" exclaimed the British captain, "They are four to one! Hold hands, Americans! We surrender!"

It was time for him to do so, for fully a third of his crew were already down. They had been completely surprised as well as outnumbered.

"Ugh!" exclaimed Up-na-tan, as he lowered his pike and turned suddenly toward Guert. "Boy hurt?"

"Coco catch him!" said the old black man, eagerly, as Guert sank upon the deck. "Saw lobster cut him!"

"Never mind me!" yelled Guert. "See how Captain Avery is! Look at the cut in his head!"

"Wors'n that!" came hoa.r.s.ely from first mate Morgan, as he bent above the fallen captain. "Taber, take charge of all for a moment! Lyme Avery is dead! Shot through the heart! Send the prisoners below.

Look out for the wounded. All hands clear ship! Both ships! Make sail at once! I'm in command of the _Noank_. Taber'll take this one."

The second mate was a Groton man, a grim old salt who had sailed in many seas. He was a good man to lean on in such an emergency, and he rattled out his orders while the men secured the prisoners. Morgan slowly stood erect as the English commander came toward him.

"You are the American captain, sir? I know what your ship is. Mine is the _Lynx_, British privateer, Captain Ellis. We were on the lookout for you, or we thought we were."

"I'm Captain Morgan, now Lyme Avery is dead," was the somewhat sadly spoken reply. "How is it that you're so short-handed?"

"We had only forty able men left, all told," said Ellis. "Thirteen more sick or wounded. All the rest away in prizes or taken out of us by the reg'lar men-o'-war. The prizes and the press-gangs turned us over to you, sir. We took a Baltimore lugger, a bark from Philadelphia, two schooners from Boston, and one from Providence. We'd done right well, so far. You must ha' made a prime run, yourself."

He was evidently a privateersman all over, and his view of the matter was that he had only met with a disaster in the regular line of his business.

Morgan's thoughts were running in another direction.

"Your armament's heavier than ours," he said, after a sharp survey.

"Lyme was right, poor fellow! Our only chance was to board."

"Perhaps it was," said Ellis. "We've two nines and three sixes on a side. Our pivot-gun's gearing broke, and she's no good. Thirty-two, though. The _Lynx_ is an old Indiaman. She's a little heavy, but she's a good sailer. We cut up your spars a little?"

The sailors of the _Noank_ were already examining her damages. Three more of her crew had been killed and two wounded in the short, sharp fight. Six Englishmen killed and seven more hurt out of forty told how severely the odds had been against them.

During the first few moments of noise and confusion, while the other sailors were rushing hither and thither upon their very pressing duties, Up-na-tan and Coco had been kneeling by Guert.

A pike-thrust in his right thigh, a slight sword-cut on his left shoulder, a bruise upon his head, told for him that he had been in the very front of the fray.

"Both cut cure up quick," said Up-na-tan, as he bandaged the wounds.

"Boy no die. Ole chief glad o' that. Take him home to ole woman."

From the Ashantee came nothing but an apparently gratified chuckle.

Their first work was to get him back upon the _Noank_ and into a bunk in Captain Avery's cabin, by Morgan's especial direction. All the other wounded, on both sides, were well cared for. Then there was a short, sorrowful hour given to sea funerals, and all the dead were buried in the ocean.

Mate Taber, with more than half of the _Noank's_ company, was put in charge of the _Lynx_. All of the prisoners, also, were left in her.

"Homeward bound, Taber," shouted Captain Morgan, as the ships parted from their too close companionship. "Take your own course to New London. The main thing is to get in."

"Ay, ay!" called back the old Groton sailor. "We'll get there. We'd best keep within signal distance as long as we can, but the schooner's riggin' needs repairs, and ours doesn't."

"All right," said Morgan. "Keep company!"