The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea Part 36

"Away," said Tom, grasping the collar of the helpless Dillon, and rather carrying than leading him into the gallery: "if a sound, one-quarter as loud as a young porpoise makes when he draws his first breath, comes from you, villain, you shall see the sight of the Alacrity over again.

My harpoon keeps its edge well, and the old arm can yet drive it to the seizing."

This menace effectually silenced even the hard, perturbed breathings of the captive, who, with his conductor, followed the light steps of Katherine through some of the secret mazes of the building, until, in a few minutes, they issued through a small door into the open air. Without pausing to deliberate, Miss Plowden led the c.o.c.kswain through the grounds, to a different wicket from the one by which he had entered the paddock, and pointing to the path, which might be dimly traced along the faded herbage, she bade G.o.d bless him, in a voice that discovered her interest in his safety, and vanished from his sight like an aerial being.

Tom needed no incentive to his speed, now that his course lay so plainly before him, but loosening his pistols in his belt, and poising his harpoon, he crossed the fields at a gait that compelled his companion to exert his utmost powers, in the way of walking, to equal. Once or twice, Dillon ventured to utter a word or two; but a stern "silence" from the c.o.c.kswain warned him to cease, until perceiving that they were approaching the cliffs, he made a final effort to obtain his liberty, by hurriedly promising a large bribe. The c.o.c.kswain made no reply, and the captive was secretly hoping that his scheme was producing its wonted effects, when he unexpectedly felt the keen cold edge of the barbed iron of the harpoon pressing against his breast, through the opening of his ruffles, and even raising the skin.

"Liar!" said Tom; "another word, and I'll drive it through your heart!"

From that moment, Dillon was as silent as the grave. They reached the edge of the cliffs, without encountering the party that had been sent in quest of Barnstable, and at a point near where they had landed. The old seaman paused an instant on the verge of the precipice, and cast his experienced eyes along the wide expanse of water that lay before him.

The sea was no longer sleeping, but already in heavy motion, and rolling its surly waves against the base of the rocks on which he stood, scattering their white crests high in foam. The c.o.c.kswain, after bending his looks along the whole line of the eastern horizon, gave utterance to a low and stifled groan; and then, striking the staff of his harpoon violently against the earth, he pursued his way along the very edge of the cliffs, muttering certain dreadful denunciations, which the conscience of his appalled listener did not fail to apply to himself. It appeared to the latter, that his angry and excited leader sought the giddy verge of the precipice with a sort of wanton recklessness, so daring were the steps that he took along its brow, notwithstanding the darkness of the hour, and the violence of the blasts that occasionally rushed by them, leaving behind a kind of reaction, that more than once brought the life of the manacled captive in imminent jeopardy. But it would seem the wary c.o.c.kswain had a motive for this apparently inconsiderate desperation. When they had made good quite half the distance between the point where Barnstable had landed and that where he had appointed to meet his c.o.c.kswain, the sounds of voices were brought indistinctly to their ears, in one of the momentary pauses of the rushing winds, and caused the c.o.c.kswain to make a dead stand in his progress. He listened intently for a single minute, when his resolution appeared to be taken. He turned to Dillon and spoke; though his voice was suppressed and low, it was deep and resolute.

"One word, and you die; over the cliffs! You must take a seaman's ladder: there is footing on the rocks, and crags for your hands. Over the cliff, I bid ye, or I'll cast ye into the sea, as I would a dead enemy!"

"Mercy, mercy!" implored Dillon; "I could not do it in the day; by this light I shall surely perish."

"Over with ye!" said Tom, "or----"

Dillon waited for no more, but descended, with trembling steps, the dangerous precipice that lay before him. He was followed by the c.o.c.kswain, with a haste that unavoidably dislodged his captive from the trembling stand he had taken on the shelf of a rock, who, to his increased horror found himself dangling in the air, his body impending over the sullen surf, that was tumbling in with violence upon the rocks beneath him. An involuntary shriek burst from Dillon, as he felt his person thrust from the narrow shelf; and his cry sounded amidst the tempest, like the screechings of the spirit of the storm.

"Another such a call, and I cut your tow-line, villain," said the determined seaman, "when nothing short of eternity will bring you up."

The sounds of footsteps and voices were now distinctly audible, and presently a party of armed men appeared on the edges of the rocks, directly above them.

"It was a human voice," said one of them, "and like a man in distress."

"It cannot be the men we are sent in search of," returned Sergeant Drill; "for no watchword that I ever heard sounded like that cry."

"They say that such cries are often heard in storms along this coast,"

said a voice that was uttered with less of military confidence than the two others: "and they are thought to come from drowned seamen."

A feeble laugh arose among the listeners, and one or two forced jokes were made at the expense of their superst.i.tious comrade; but the scene did not fail to produce its effect on even the most st.u.r.dy among the unbelievers in the marvelous; for, after a few more similar remarks, the whole party retired from the cliffs, at a pace that might have been accelerated by the nature of their discourse. The c.o.c.kswain, who had stood all this time, firm as the rock which supported him, bearing up not only his own weight, but the person of Dillon also, raised his head above the brow of the precipice, as they withdrew, to reconnoitre, and then, drawing up the nearly insensible captive, and placing him in safety on the bank, he followed himself. Not a moment was wasted in unnecessary explanations, but Dillon found himself again urged forward, with the same velocity as before. In a few minutes they gained the desired ravine, down which Tom plunged with a seaman's nerve, dragging his prisoner after him, and directly they stood where the waves rose to their feet, as they flowed far and foaming across the sands.--The c.o.c.kswain stooped so low as to bring the crest of the billows in a line with the horizon, when he discovered the dark boat, playing in the outer edge of the surf.

"What hoa! Ariels there!" shouted Tom, in a voice that the growing tempest carried to the ears of the retreating soldiers, who quickened their footsteps, as they listened to sounds which their fears taught them to believe supernatural.

"Who hails?" cried the well-known voice of Barnstable.

"Once your master, now your servant," answered the c.o.c.kswain with a watchword of his own invention.

"'Tis he," returned the lieutenant; "veer away, boys, veer away. You must wade into the surf."

Tom caught Dillon in his arms; and throwing him, like a cork, across his shoulder, he dashed into the streak of foam that was bearing the boat on its crest, and before his companion had time for remonstrance or entreaty, he found himself once more by the side of Barnstable.

"Who have we here?" asked the lieutenant; "this is not Griffith!"

"Haul out and weigh your grapnel," said the excited c.o.c.kswain; "and then, boys, if you love the Ariel, pull while the life and the will is left in you."

Barnstable knew his man, and not another question was asked, until the boat was without the breakers, now skimming the rounded summits of the waves, or settling into the hollows of the seas, but always cutting the waters asunder, as she urged her course, with amazing velocity, towards the haven where the schooner had been left at anchor. Then, in a few but bitter sentences, the c.o.c.kswain explained to his commander the treachery of Dillon, and the danger of the schooner.

"The soldiers are slow at a night muster," Tom concluded; "and from what I overheard, the express will have to make a crooked course, to double the head of the bay, so that, but for this northeaster, we might weather upon them yet; but it's a matter that lies altogether in the will of Providence. Pull, my hearties, pull--everything depends on your oars to- night."

Barnstable listened in deep silence to this unexpected narration, which sounded in the ears of Dillon like his funeral knell. At length, the suppressed voice of the lieutenant was heard, also, uttering:

"Wretch! if I should cast you into the sea, as food for the fishes, who could blame me? But if my schooner goes to the bottom, she shall prove your coffin!"

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Had I been any G.o.d of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth, ere It should the good ship so have swallowed."

_Tempest_.

The arms of Dillon were released from their confinement by the c.o.c.kswain, as a measure of humane caution against accidents, when they entered the surf; and the captive now availed himself of the circ.u.mstance to bury his features in the folds of his attire, when he brooded over the events of the last few hours with that mixture of malignant pa.s.sion and pusillanimous dread of the future, that formed the chief ingredients in his character. From this state of apparent quietude neither Barnstable nor Tom seemed disposed to rouse him by their remarks, for both were too much engaged with their own gloomy forebodings, to indulge in any unnecessary words. An occasional e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n from the former, as if to propitiate the spirit of the storm, as he gazed on the troubled appearance of the elements, or a cheering cry from the latter to animate his crew, alone were heard amid the sullen roaring of the waters, and the mournful whistling of the winds that swept heavily across the broad waste of the German Ocean.

There might have been an hour consumed thus, in a vigorous struggle between the seamen and the growing billows, when the boat doubled the northern headland of the desired haven, and shot, at once, from its boisterous pa.s.sage along the margin of the breakers into the placid waters of the sequestered bay, The pa.s.sing blasts were still heard rushing above the high lands that surrounded, and, in fact, formed, the estuary; but the profound stillness of deep night pervaded the secret recesses, along the unruffled surface of its waters. The shadows of the hills seemed to have acc.u.mulated, like a ma.s.s of gloom, in the centre of the basin, and though every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was in vain that the anxious seamen endeavored to discover their little vessel through its density. While the boat glided into this quiet scene, Barnstable anxiously observed:

"Everything is as still as death."

"G.o.d send it is not the stillness of death!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the c.o.c.kswain.

"Here, here," he continued, speaking in a lower tone, as if fearful of being overheard, "here she lies, sir, more to port; look into the streak of clear sky above the marsh, on the starboard hand of the wood, there; that long black line is her maintopmast; I know it by the rake; and there is her night-pennant fluttering about that bright star; ay, ay, sir, there go our own stars aloft yet, dancing among the stars in the heavens! G.o.d bless her! G.o.d bless her! she rides as easy and as quiet as a gull asleep!"

"I believe all in her sleep too," returned his commander. "Ha! by heaven, we have arrived in good time: the soldiers are moving!"

The quick eye of Barnstable had detected the glimmering of pa.s.sing lanterns, as they flitted across the embrasures of the battery, and at the next moment the guarded but distinct sounds of an active bustle on the decks of the schooner were plainly audible. The lieutenant was rubbing his hands together, with a sort of ecstasy, that probably will not be understood by the great majority of our readers, while long Tom was actually indulging in a paroxysm of his low spiritless laughter, as these certain intimations of the safety of the Ariel, and of the vigilance of her crew, were conveyed to their ears; when the whole hull and taper spars of their floating home became unexpectedly visible, and the sky, the placid basin, and the adjacent hills, were illuminated by a flash as sudden and as vivid as the keenest lightning. Both Barnstable and his c.o.c.kswain seemed instinctively to strain their eyes towards the schooner, with an effort to surpa.s.s human vision; but ere the rolling reverberations of the report of a heavy piece of ordnance from the heights had commenced, the dull, whistling rush of the shot swept over their heads, like the moaning of a hurricane, and was succeeded by the plash of the waters, which was followed, in a breath, by the rattling of the ma.s.s of iron, as it bounded with violent fury from rock to rock, shivering and tearing the fragments that lined the margin of the bay.

"A bad aim with the first gun generally leaves your enemy clean decks,"

said the c.o.c.kswain, with his deliberate sort of philosophy; "smoke makes but dim spectacles; besides, the night always grows darkest as you call off the morning watch."

"That boy is a miracle for his years!" rejoined the delighted lieutenant. "See, Tom, the younker has shifted his berth in the dark, and the Englishmen have fired by the day-range they must have taken, for we left him in a direct line between the battery and yon hummock! What would have become of us, if that heavy fellow had plunged upon our decks, and gone out below the water-line?"

"We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our metal and kentledge would have taken us down," responded Tom; "such a point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and not even left the marines time to say a prayer!--tend bow there!"

It is not to be supposed that the crew of the whale-boat continued idle during this interchange of opinions between the lieutenant and his c.o.c.kswain; on the contrary, the sight of their vessel acted on them like a charm, and, believing that all necessity for caution was now over, they had expended their utmost strength in efforts that had already brought them, as the last words of Tom indicated, to the side of the Ariel. Though every nerve of Barnstable was thrilling with the excitement produced by his feelings pa.s.sing from a state of the most doubtful apprehension to that of a revived and almost confident hope of effecting his escape, he a.s.sumed the command of his vessel with all that stern but calm authority, that seamen find is most necessary to exert in the moments of extremest danger. Any one of the heavy shot that their enemies continued to hurl from their heights into the darkness of the haven he well knew must prove fatal to them, as it would, unavoidably, pa.s.s through the slight fabric of the Ariel, and open a pa.s.sage to the water that no means he possessed could remedy.--His mandates were, therefore, issued with a full perception of the critical nature of the emergency, but with that collectedness of manner, and intonation of voice, that were best adapted to enforce a ready and animated obedience.

Under this impulse, the crew of the schooner soon got their anchor freed from the bottom, and, seizing their sweeps, they forced her by their united efforts directly in the face of the battery, under that sh.o.r.e whose summit was now crowned with a canopy of smoke, that every discharge of the ordnance tinged with dim colors, like the faintest tints that are reflected from the clouds towards a setting sun. So long as the seamen were enabled to keep their little bark under the cover of the hill, they were, of course, safe; but Barnstable perceived, as they emerged from its shadow, and were drawing nigh the pa.s.sage which led into the ocean, that the action of his sweeps would no longer avail them against the currents of air they encountered, neither would the darkness conceal their movements from his enemy, who had already employed men on the sh.o.r.e to discern the position of the schooner. Throwing off at once, therefore, all appearance of disguise, he gave forth the word to spread the canvas of his vessel, in his ordinary cheerful manner.

"Let them do their worst now, Merry," he added; "we have brought them to a distance that I think will keep their iron above water, and we have no dodge about us, younker!"

"It must be keener marksmen than the militia, or volunteers, or fencibles, or whatever they call themselves, behind yon gra.s.s-bank, to frighten the saucy Ariel from the wind," returned the reckless boy; "but why have you brought Jonah aboard us again, sir? Look at him by the light of the cabin lamp; he winks at every gun, as if he expected the shot would hull his own ugly yellow physiognomy. And what tidings have we, sir, from Mr. Griffith and the marine?"

"Name him not," said Barnstable, pressing the shoulder on which he lightly leaned, with a convulsive grasp, that caused the boy to yield with pain; "name him not, Merry; I want my temper and my faculties at this moment undisturbed, and thinking of the wretch unfits me for my duty. But, there will come a time! Go forward, sir; we feel the wind, and have a narrow pa.s.sage to work through."

The boy obeyed a mandate which was given in the usual prompt manner of their profession, and which, he well understood, was intended to intimate that the distance which years and rank had created between them, but which Barnstable often chose to forget while communing with Merry, was now to be resumed. The sails had been loosened and set; and, as the vessel approached the throat of the pa.s.sage, the gale, which was blowing with increasing violence, began to make a very sensible impression on the light bark. The c.o.c.kswain, who, in the absence of most of the inferior officers, had been acting, on the forecastle, the part of one who felt, from his years and experience, that he had some right to advise, if not to command, at such a juncture, now walked to the station which his commander had taken, near the helmsman, as if willing to place himself in the way of being seen.

"Well, Master Coffin," said Barnstable, who well understood the propensity his old shipmate had to commune with him on all important occasions, "what think you of the cruise now? Those gentlemen on the hill make a great noise, but I have lost even the whistling of their shot; one would think they could see our sails against the broad band of light which is opening to seaward."

"Ay, ay, sir, they see us, and mean to hit us too; but we are running across their fire, and that with a ten-knot breeze; but, when we heave in stays, and get in a line with their guns, we shall see, and it may be feel, more of their work than we do now; a thirty-two an't trained as easily as a fowling-piece or a ducking-gun."

Barnstable was struck with the truth of this observation; but as there existed an immediate necessity for placing the schooner in the very situation to which the other alluded, he gave his orders at once, and the vessel came about, and ran with her head pointing towards the sea, in as short a time as we have taken to record it.