The Noank's Log Part 9

"I'll learn what to do with mine," said Guert. "'Tisn't easy, though.

'Tisn't like handling a rifle or a shotgun. It's a good deal in the loading and in guessing distances."

"Up-na-tan," was Rachel's next half-humorous inquiry, "thee wicked old Indian! Has thee been shooting at thy good king with thy big gun?"

"Ole woman no talk!" grumbled the Manhattan. "Up-na-tan all mad! Want long thirty-two. Pivot-gun too small. Hit lobster brig. No sink her."

"Ole chief not take any 'calp," chuckled Coco, maliciously, "so he feel bad. Want 'calp somebody, soon's he can. Now old Coco had fight, s'pose he 'bout ready for he supper."

That feeling seemed to have spread very widely, as if good news were calculated to produce good appet.i.tes. It was a hungry time as well as a triumph, and in many houses there were home-made feasts, that evening. There was one, for instance, at the Avery house, and Guert was there, of course. He was glad of one more visit to his mother, but a peculiarly warlike thrill went over him before he reached the gate.

It was when Lyme Avery said to his mate, as they separated:--

"Sam Prentice, tell your wife to send you out good and early. We're goin' to have another brush with that there British brig, to-morrow, if the wind's at all right for it."

"I don't know," replied Sam. "Our best hold is to slip past her, if we can, and git out into the open sea. It wouldn't do to run back into the Sound, but I'd like to pick up another prize right here. We might."

"A little too risky," said the captain, "with her on the watch. That's the talk, though. We're goin' to bring more'n one prize into New London, 'fore we git through."

Guert was well aware that the _Noank_ had taken out what were called "letters of marque and reprisal," and was therefore a regularly authorized and commissioned commerce-destroyer. She was one of many.

In several of the colonial ports, north and south, precisely such sea-wolves had long since made their preparations, and some were already at sea. They were making serious havoc and were soon to make more in the widely distributed, ocean-going commerce of Great Britain.

It was a cruel, destructive, uncivilized kind of warfare, but it was customary among all the nations of the earth. In like manner, at this very date, British privateers were out after American prizes. These latter, moreover, had the regular cruisers of England as auxiliaries.

Less agreeably, sometimes, the warships came in as business rivals or to claim a division of spoils. The Yankee privateers themselves const.i.tuted nearly the entire navy of the United States.

Sunrise does not come early in the month of January. It seems to come earlier and there is more of it, if the weather is clear. On the next morning after the arrival of the Trenton news, however, a thick white mist came drifting up New London harbor from the sea. There was only a light wind blowing from the westward, and it promised to be one of the hazy days of winter, such as come before a thaw.

"This 'ere is jest the thing for us," remarked Captain Avery, when he came out to see about the weather. "It's the right kind o' breeze for a schooner, and it's jest the wrong thing for a square rig. We can spread more canvas for our draft and tonnage than that king's brig can, anyhow."

There was no one to dispute him, and he and Vine and Guert were shortly on their way to the wharf. The Yankee shipbuilders, with abundance of the best timber at hand and any number of bays and inlets to work in, had constructed admirable shipyards upon plans of their own. Point after point they had gone away from antiquated models, and they had already made many important improvements in the building and rigging of all kinds of craft. Before many years, the whole sea-going world was to be forced to recognize their superiority.

All of the _Noank's_ crew were on board when her captain reached her, and he at once gave orders to cast off from the wharf. Only a very few of her friends came down to see her go. Farewells had been already said, for the greater part, and even the sailors' wives had been aware that there would be no lingering. The Long Island whaleboat was nowhere to be seen. It might be that her hardy oarsmen, their errand accomplished, had set out to recross to their own sh.o.r.e under the cover of darkness.

"Some o' those island chaps," remarked Sam Prentice, "ain't but a little better'n so many buccaneers. They're up to 'most any kind o'

pillagin'. Do ye know, Lyme, the first o' the West Injy pirates, long ago, made their beginnin' with very much that kind o' open boat? It was a good while before they were able to supply themselves with the right kind o' sailin' vessels."

"They did it, though," said Lyme.

"Murderous lot they were, too," said Vine. "They never left anybody alive to tell tales of 'em."

"Ugh! Ugh!" came from Up-na-tan, in a sort of snarl. "All Kidd men dead now. No come again."

The Manhattan had seated himself upon a coil of rope and was busy with a hone and the edge of a cutla.s.s, as if he hoped to use it soon.

"No, they're not," replied Prentice, with energy. "There's enough of 'em yet. Some say they're gettin' worse'n ever within a year or so.

This 'ere schooner's got to keep a sharp lookout for 'em, soon's we're among the islands."

"That's so, Sam," said Captain Avery. "I'll tell ye one thing more, too. I'd ruther come to close quarters with a cruiser like that there British brig than with one o' those half-Spanish West Injy picaroons.

Some right well-armed British and French fightin' craft have found 'em dreadfully hard to handle."

"So would we," said Sam, "and I wouldn't at all mind sendin' one of 'em to the bottom. It'd be a matter o' life and death, ye know, for they don't show any kind o' mercy. Not to man, woman, or child."

Guert listened intently, for he had already heard, year after year, a great many terrible yarns concerning the rovers of the Antilles. Part of his daily business, too, was to listen well to whatever he might hear, and he was learning a great deal in various ways. Brought up on Manhattan Island, as he had been, he was familiar, of course, with the external appearance of all kinds of shipping, whether of war or peace.

He had also seen a great deal of boat service. Now, however, he had discovered that all this had not made a sailor of him. He was only a mere beginner, although it seemed to him that he had been getting along rapidly ever since he first saw the _Noank_. This was his first actual cruising, but he had spent a great deal of time on board while she was waiting in port. He believed that he knew every nook and corner of her. He could go aloft like a squirrel or a monkey, but for all that he felt dreadfully raw and green among such a crew of seasoned old mariners. Every man of them, almost, could tell of long voyages. They knew the Antilles well, and the other groups of American islands. Some knew more of the coasts of South America, some of Europe. More in number, and even more full of daring and of danger, were the tales he had heard of the whale fishery, with its glimpse of ice-fields, icebergs, frozen seas, and its combats not only with the oil-producing monsters of the sea, but with white bears also, and walruses, and hostile red men; to him, therefore, these men of the _Noank's_ company were the heroes of the ocean. He admired them tremendously, just now, as they discussed, in their matter-of-fact way, quietly, calmly, fearlessly, the seemingly desperate chances just before them. They all admitted, without hesitation, that it was a pretty doubtful problem whether or not they would be able to escape not only the one cruiser near them, but afterward the vigilant British blockade of the Sound entrance and of the adjacent waters. The _Noank_ had very serious risks to run before she could spread her wings on the Atlantic.

The mist was hanging lower, thicker, whiter, and the morning gun from Fort Griswold had long since announced that in the opinion of the gunners the sun had risen.

"Hullo! What?" exclaimed Captain Avery, springing to his feet.

"Another? They don't fire a shotted gun jest for sunrise."

His practical ears had told him that this report was not made by a blank cartridge. What could it mean?

"Gunner saw lobster ship," said Up-na-tan, quietly.

Away he went, then, toward his long eighteen, followed by Coco and Guert and several sailors.

"Captain Avery," he called back, "ole chief get gun ready. S'pose fort gunner no fool."

"Ready with her!" said the captain. "Ready! Every gun! Silence, all!

This fog's a friend of ours."

The Indian's understanding of the shotted cannon was correct. The sharp-eyed lookout upon the rampart had detected something more than fog in the general whiteness which concealed the sea, and the nearest gunner had at once put in a nine-pound ball on top of his signal cartridge.

"That brig has crept in to watch for the _Noank_," they said to each other. "Let's give her a pill."

The pill went well enough for a warning to the _Boxer_ that her sly creeping in had been discovered, but it did no damage. Probably its best use was the response it provoked from the too hasty gunners of the _Boxer_. For the brig to fire at the fort was mere bravado, of course; but her commander was nettled.

"Give 'em a broadside!" he roared. "Let 'em have it. They can't strike us out here in the mist. Blaze away!"

All the port guns of the brig, five in number, were of small account against earth and stone works; but they could express warlike feeling, and they immediately did so, and they did one thing more.

"Good!" said Captain Avery, as he heard them. "Now I know jest where she is. Wish I knew how she's headed. We've all sail on. Keep still, all! We can slip past her."

As quietly as so many ghosts, the men went hither and thither about their duties. They had not very much to do, for every square yard of the schooner's canvas was already taking that fair light wind. The brig, on the other hand, was by no means under full sail, for some reason, and she was tacking now that she might run deeper into the fog and out of the way of harm from the fort batteries. These were not wasting any more ammunition upon her, or rather upon the mist and the sea. Only her topsails had been seen, in the first place, and these had been quickly hidden again. The two vessels were, nevertheless, drawing nearer to each other, unawares. There was no carefully kept silence on board the _Boxer_; on the contrary, her crew were every now and then doing something to send out notice to any ears near enough to hear. At close quarters she would have been a dangerous antagonist for the Yankee schooner. There was nothing at all to be made in a fight with her, and Captain Avery was strongly averse to the idea of having his vessel crippled or worse at the very outset of his voyage.

A wonderful thing is a curtain of sea fog. Sometimes it may be beautiful, but it is never at all under human control. The _Noank_ was running swiftly along and the very breeze which made her do so was getting its grip upon the banks of vapor. It tore one of these in the middle, suddenly. A great rift was opened, and clear water showed across one short half-mile of the tossing sea.

"There she blows!" sang out an old harpooner of the _Noank's_ crew, as if the _Boxer_ had been a whale.

"Luff! Luff!" shouted the British commander. "Bring your guns to bear! We have her! Hurrah!"

"Whoo-oop! Up-na-tan!" came fiercely from behind the breech of the _Noank's_ long eighteen, and the Manhattan's warwhoop was closely followed by the roar of his gun.

"Hard a-lee!" called out Captain Avery. "Sam! Run her into the fog.

All hands, to go about. We must get under cover ag'in."

Short range and a good aim, with the _Boxer's_ masts nearly in line, had been bad for the Englishman's triumph. Down came his foretopmast, splintered at the cap, dragging with it enough of spars and hamper to a.s.sure that anything like racing condition had been knocked out of the brig. She obeyed her helm, at first. She swung around and her port broadside was delivered; but it was a mere waste of powder and round iron. Not a shot touched the saucy _Noank_, speeding away through a fog bank.

Loud, indeed, was the startled exclamation of the astonished British commander as he surveyed his unexpected damages.

"'Pon my soul!" he said. "That pirate is going to get away from us.

This is too bad, altogether!"