The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea Part 52

"Ay, ay," muttered Boltrope to his friend the chaplain, "now the old man has hauled out his mizzen, you'll see him carry a weather-helm! He wakes up about as often as the trades shift their points, and that's once in six months. But when there has been a neap-tide in his temper for any time, you're sure to find it followed by a flood with a vengeance. Let us hear what the first lieutenant can say in favor of his petticoat quality!"

The blushing sky had not exhibited a more fiery glow than gleamed in the fine face of Griffith for a moment; but, struggling with his disgust, he answered with bitter emphasis:

"'Twas the pleasure of Mr. Gray, sir, to bring off the prisoners."

"Of Mr. Gray!" repeated the captain, instantly losing every trace of displeasure in an air of acquiescence. "Come-to, sir, on the same tack with the ship, and I will hasten to order the accommodation-ladder rigged, to receive our guests!"

Boltrope listened to this sudden alteration in the language of his commander with sufficient wonder; nor was it until he had shaken his head repeatedly, with the manner of one who saw deeper than his neighbors into a mystery, that he found leisure to observe:

"Now, parson, I suppose if you held an almanac in your fist, you'd think you could tell which way we shall have the wind to-morrow! but d.a.m.n me, priest, if better calculators than you haven't failed! Because a lubberly--no, he's a thorough seaman, I'll say that for the fellow!-- because a pilot chooses to say, 'Bring me off these here women,' the ship is to be so cluttered with she-cattle, that a man will be obligated to spend half his time in making his manners! Now mind what I tell you, priest, this very frolic will cost Congress the price of a year's wages for an able-bodied seaman in bunting and canvas for screens; besides the wear and tear of running-gear in shortening sail, in order that the women need not be 'stericky in squalls!"

The presence of Mr. Boltrope being required to take charge of the cutter, the divine was denied an opportunity of dissenting from the opinions of his rough companion; for the loveliness of their novel shipmates had not failed to plead loudly in their favor with every man in the cutter whose habits and ideas had not become rigidly set in obstinacy.

By the time the Alacrity was hove-to, with her head towards the frigate, the long line of boats that she had been towing during the latter part of the night were brought to her side, and filled with men. A wild scene of unbridled merriment and gayety succeeded, while the seamen were exchanging the confinement of the prize for their accustomed lodgings in the ship, during which the reins of discipline were slightly relaxed.

Loud laughter was echoed from boat to boat, as they glided by each other; and rude jests, interlarded with quaint humors and strange oaths, were freely bandied from mouth to mouth. The noise, however, soon ceased, and the pa.s.sage of Colonel Howard and his wards was then effected with less precipitancy and due decorum. Captain Munson, who had been holding a secret dialogue with Griffith and the Pilot, received his unexpected guests with plain hospitality, but with an evident desire to be civil. He politely yielded to their service his two convenient staterooms, and invited them to partake, in common with himself, of the comforts of the great cabin.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

"Furious press the hostile squadron, Furious he repels their rage.

Loss of blood at length enfeebles; Who can war with thousands wage?"

_Spanish War Song._

We cannot detain the narrative to detail the scenes which busy wonder, aided by the relation of divers marvelous feats, produced among the curious seamen who remained in the ship, and their more fortunate fellows who had returned in glory from an expedition to the land. For nearly an hour the turbulence of a general movement was heard, issuing from the deep recesses of the frigate, and the boisterous sounds of hoa.r.s.e merriment were listened to by the officers in indulgent silence; but all these symptoms of unbridled humor ceased by the time the morning repast was ended, when the regular sea-watch was set, and the greater portion of those whose duty did not require their presence on the vessel's deck, availed themselves of the opportunity to repair the loss of sleep sustained in the preceding night. Still no preparations were made to put the ship in motion, though long and earnest consultations, which were supposed to relate to their future destiny, were observed by the younger officers to be held between their captain, the first lieutenant, and the mysterious Pilot. The latter threw many an anxious glance along the eastern horizon, searching it minutely with his gla.s.s, and then would turn his impatient looks at the low, dense bank of fog, which, stretching across the ocean like a barrier of cloud, entirely intercepted the view towards the south. To the north and along the land the air was clear, and the sea without a spot of any kind; but in the east a small white sail had been discovered since the opening of day, which was gradually rising above the water, and a.s.suming the appearance of a vessel of some size. Every officer on the quarter-deck in his turn had examined this distant sail, and had ventured an opinion on its destination and character; and even Katherine, who with her cousin was enjoying, in the open air, the novel beauties of the ocean, had been tempted to place her sparkling eye to a gla.s.s, to gaze at the stranger.

"It is a collier," Griffith said, "who has hauled from the land in the late gale, and who is luffing up to his course again. If the wind holds here in the south, and he does not get into that fog-bank, we can stand off for him and get a supply of fuel before eight bells are struck."

"I think his head is to the northward, and that he is steering off the wind," returned the Pilot, in a musing manner, "If that Dillon succeeded in getting his express far enough along the coast, the alarm has been spread, and we must be wary. The convoy of the Baltic trade is in the North Sea, and news of our presence could easily have been taken off to it by some of the cutters that line the coast, I could wish to get the ship as far south as the Helder!"

"Then we lose this weather tide!" exclaimed the impatient Griffith; "surely we have the cutter as a lookout! besides, by beating into the fog, we shall lose the enemy, if enemy it be, and it is thought meet for an American frigate to skulk from her foes!"

The scornful expression that kindled the eye of the Pilot, like a gleam of sunshine lighting for an instant some dark dell and laying bare its secrets, was soon lost in the usually quiet look of his glance, though he hesitated like one who was struggling with his pa.s.sions before he answered:

"If prudence and the service of the States require it, even this proud frigate must retreat and hide from the meanest of her enemies. My advice, Captain Munson, is, that you make sail, and beat the ship to windward, as Mr. Griffith has suggested, and that you order the cutter to precede us, keeping more in with the land."

The aged seaman, who evidently suspended his orders only to receive an intimation of the other's pleasure, immediately commanded his youthful a.s.sistant to issue the necessary mandates to put these measures in force. Accordingly, the Alacrity, which vessel had been left under the command of the junior lieutenant of the frigate, was quickly under way; and, making short stretches to windward, she soon entered the bank of fog, and was lost to the eye. In the mean time the canvas of the ship was loosened, and spread leisurely, in order not to disturb the portion of the crew who were sleeping; and, following her little consort, she moved heavily through the water, bearing up against the dull breeze.

The quiet of regular duty had succeeded to the bustle of making sail; and, as the rays of the sun fell less obliquely on the distant land, Katherine and Cecilia were amusing Griffith by vain attempts to point out the rounded eminences which they fancied lay in the vicinity of the deserted mansion of St. Ruth. Barnstable, who had resumed his former station in the frigate as her second lieutenant, was pacing the opposite side of the quarter-deck, holding under his arm the speaking-trumpet, which denoted that he held the temporary control of the motions of the ship, and inwardly cursing the restraint that kept him from the side of his mistress. At this moment of universal quiet, when nothing above low dialogues interrupted the dashing of the waves as they were thrown lazily aside by the bows of the vessel, the report of a light cannon burst out of the barrier of fog, and rolled by them on the breeze, apparently vibrating with the rising and sinking of the waters.

"There goes the cutter!" exclaimed Griffith, the instant the sound was heard.

"Surely," said the captain, "Somers is not so indiscreet as to scale his guns, after the caution he has received!"

"No idle scaling of guns is intended there," said the Pilot, straining his eyes to pierce the fog, but soon turning away in disappointment at his inability to succeed--"that gun is shotted, and has been fired in the hurry of a sudden signal!--can your lookouts see nothing, Mr.

Barnstable?"

The lieutenant of the watch hailed the man aloft, and demanded if anything were visible in the direction of the wind, and received for answer that the fog intercepted the view in that quarter of the heavens, but that the sail in the east was a ship, running large, or before the wind. The Pilot shook his head doubtingly at this information, but still he manifested a strong reluctance to relinquish the attempt of getting more to the southward. Again he communed with the commander of the frigate, apart from all other ears; and while they yet deliberated, a second report was heard, leaving no doubt that the Alacrity was firing signal-guns for their particular attention.

"Perhaps," said Griffith, "he wishes to point out his position, or to ascertain ours; believing that we are lost like himself in the mist"

"We have our compa.s.ses!" returned the doubting captain; "Somers has a meaning in what he says!"

"See!" cried Katherine, with girlish delight, "see, my cousin! see, Barnstable! how beautifully that vapor is wreathing itself in clouds above the smoky line of fog! It stretches already into the very heavens like a lofty pyramid!"

Barnstable sprang lightly on a gun, as he repeated her words:

"Pyramids of fog! and wreathing clouds! By heaven!" he shouted, "'tis a tall ship! Royals, skysails, and stud-dingsails all abroad! She is within a mile of us, and comes down like a racehorse, with a spanking breeze, dead before it! Now know we why Somers is speaking in the mist!"

"Ay," cried Griffith, "and there goes the Alacrity, just breaking out of the fog, hovering in for the land!"

"There is a mighty hull under all that cloud of canvas, Captain Munson,"

said the observant but calm Pilot: "it is time, gentlemen, to edge away to leeward."

"What, before we know from whom we run!" cried Griffith; "my life on it, there is no single ship King George owns but would tire of the sport before she had played a full game of bowls with--"

The haughty air of the young man was daunted by the severe look he encountered in the eye of the Pilot, and he suddenly ceased, though inwardly chafing with impatient pride.

"The same eye that detected the canvas above the fog might have seen the flag of a vice-admiral fluttering still nearer the heavens," returned the collected stranger; "and England, faulty as she may be, is yet too generous to place a flag-officer in time of war in command of a frigate, or a captain in command of a fleet. She knows the value of those who shed their blood in her behalf, and it is thus that she is so well served! Believe me, Captain Munson, there is nothing short of a ship of the line under that symbol of rank and that broad show of canvas!"

"We shall see, sir, we shall see," returned the old officer, whose manner grew decided, as the danger appeared to thicken; "beat to quarters, Mr. Griffith, for we have none but enemies to expect on this coast"

The order was instantly issued, when Griffith remarked, with a more temperate zeal:

"If Mr. Gray be right, we shall have reason to thank G.o.d that we are so light of heel!"

The cry of "a strange vessel close aboard the frigate" having already flown down the hatches, the ship was in an uproar at the first tap of the drum. The seamen threw themselves from their hammocks, and lashing them rapidly into long, hard bundles, they rushed to the decks, where they were dexterously stowed in the netting, to aid the defences of the upper part of the vessel. While this tumultuous scene was exhibiting, Griffith gave a secret order to Merry, who disappeared, leading his trembling cousins to a place of safety in the inmost depths of the ship.

The guns were cleared of their lumber and loosened. The bulkheads were knocked down, and the cabin relieved of its furniture; and the gun-deck exhibited one unbroken line of formidable cannon, arranged in all the order of a naval battery ready to engage. Arm-chests were thrown open, and the decks strewed with pikes, cutla.s.ses, pistols, and all the various weapons for boarding. In short, the yards were slung, and every other arrangement was made with a readiness and dexterity that were actually wonderful, though all was performed amid an appearance of disorder and confusion that rendered the ship another Babel during the continuance of the preparations. In a very few minutes everything was completed, and even the voices of the men ceased to be heard answering to their names, as they were mustered at their stations, by their respective officers. Gradually the ship became as quiet as the grave; and when even Griffith or his commander found it necessary to speak, their voices were calmer, and their tones more mild than usual. The course of the vessel was changed to an oblique line from that in which their enemy was approaching, though the appearance of flight was to be studiously avoided to the last moment. When nothing further remained to be done, every eye became fixed on the enormous pile of swelling canvas that was rising, in cloud over cloud, far above the fog, and which was manifestly moving, like driving vapor, swiftly to the north. Presently the dull, smoky boundary of the mist which rested on the water was pushed aside in vast volumes, and the long taper spars that projected from the bowsprit of the strange ship issued from the obscurity, and were quickly followed by the whole of the enormous fabric to which they were merely light appendages. For a moment, streaks of reluctant vapor clung to the huge floating pile; but they were soon shaken off by the rapid vessel, and the whole of her black hull became distinct to the eye.

"One, two, three rows of teeth!" said Boltrope, deliberately counting the tiers of guns that bristled along the sides of the enemy; "a three- decker! Jack Manly would show his stern to such a fellow t, and even the b.l.o.o.d.y Scotchman would run!"

"Hard up with your helm, quartermaster!" cried Captain Munson; "there is indeed no time to hesitate, with such an enemy within a quarter of a mile! Turn the hands up, Mr. Griffith, and pack on the ship from her trucks to her lower studdingsail-booms. Be stirring, sir, be stirring!

Hard up with your helm! Hard up, and be d.a.m.n'd to you!"

The unusual earnestness of their aged commander acted on the startled crew like a voice from the deep, and they waited not for the usual signals of the boatswain and drummer to be given, before they broke away from their guns, and rushed tumultuously to aid in spreading the desired canvas. There was one minute of ominous confusion, that to an inexperienced eye would have foreboded the destruction of all order in the vessel, during which every hand, and each tongue, seemed in motion; but it ended in opening the immense folds of light duck which were displayed along the whole line of the masts, far beyond the ordinary sails, overshadowing the waters for a great distance, on either side of the vessel. During the moment of inaction that succeeded this sudden exertion, the breeze, which had brought up the three-decker, fell fresher on the sails of the frigate, and she started away from her dangerous enemy with a very perceptible advantage in point of sailing.

"The fog rises!" cried Griffith; "give us but the wind for an hour, and we shall run her out of gunshot!"

"These nineties are very fast off the wind," returned the captain, in a low tone, that was intended only for the ears of his first lieutenant and the Pilot; "and we shall have a struggle for it."

The quick eye of the stranger was glancing over the movements of his enemy, while he answered:

"He finds we have the heels of him already! he is making ready, and we shall be fortunate to escape a broadside! Let her yaw a little, Mr.

Griffith; touch her lightly with the helm; if we are raked, sir, we are lost!"

The captain sprang on the taffrail of his ship with the activity of a younger man, and in an instant he perceived the truth of the other's conjecture.