The Pirate Slaver Part 6

"Not a breath, sir; but I shall not be surprised if we have a great deal more than we want before long," I answered.

"Um!" said he. "Well, almost anything short of a hurricane would be better than these exasperating calms. The swell seems to have risen a bit since I turned in, hasn't it?"

"Quite perceptibly," said I, "and it seems to be coming more out from the northward than at first."

"Well," said he, thrusting his bare feet into his slippers, "let us go on deck and take a look round."

And, he leading the way, we forthwith trundled up the companion-ladder and stepped out on deck.

It seemed to have grown blacker and more threatening than ever during the short time that I had been below, although that may have been due to the contrast between the light of the cabin and the darkness on deck; the ruddy tinge on the cloud edges, however, was even more p.r.o.nounced than before, the colour having slightly changed and grown more like the hue of red-hot copper. Ryan was evidently much astonished--and, I thought, somewhat dismayed--by what he saw.

"By the powers!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "you did right to call me, Dugdale. If we were in the Indian Ocean, now, I would say that a cyclone was brewing; and, now I come to think of it, there is no Act of Parliament against one brewing here. How is the gla.s.s _now_? has it dropped anything since you last looked at it?"

I went to the skylight and once more peered at the mercury.

"Yes, indeed, sir, it has," answered I, "it has gone down nearly one-tenth!"

"Then, by the piper, we're in for something out of the common, and the sooner we set about preparing for it, the better!" exclaimed Ryan. "Ah!

I see you have already furled everything; well, that leaves us so much the less to be still done. Call all hands, however, for we may have it upon us at any moment, by the look of things up there," pointing to the frowning, ruddy sky. "Rig in the jib-boom, and send down all but the lower-yard on deck, and both topmasts as well. Set some of the men to secure the canvas with double gaskets; and close-reef the boom-foresail and set it. Let the carpenter look to the hatches and see that they are securely battened down, and he had better examine the pumps also; our lives may depend upon them before all is over. Where is the boatswain?

Oh, is that you, Bartlett? Give an eye to the boats' gripes, will you, and see that they are all right. I have known a boat to be blown clean from the davits before now. Hurrah, men! look alive with those yards, and let us have them down here on deck as quickly as possible."

The schooner was by this time as busy as a beehive in swarming-time, the men working with a will, since they knew, from the sharp, incisive tones in which Ryan issued his orders, as well as by the menacing aspect of the sky, that the occasion was pressing. Fortunately, in so small and lightly-rigged a craft as the _Felicidad_, the task of preparing her for the forthcoming battle with the elements was not a heavy one, and, being well manned for our size, we were soon ready.

None too soon, however. For hardly had the finishing touches been given to our preparations, and the guns and boats made thoroughly secure, than we were momentarily dazzled and blinded by a terrific flash of blue lightning that seemed to dart from the clouds immediately overhead, and to strike the water close to us, filling the dead and heavy air with a strong odour of brimstone, while simultaneously we were deafened and stunned by a most awful, ear-splitting _crack_ of thunder that made the schooner quiver from stem to stern as though she had been struck by a heavy shot.

Ryan, Pierrepoint, and I were all standing close together near the companion at the moment when the lightning flashed out, illumining the whole scene for an instant with a light as brilliant as that of the noonday sun, and while I was still in process of recovering from the shock produced by the terrifying crash of the thunder, I heard my fellow-mid exclaim to the captain--

"There! did you see that, sir? There is a craft of some sort away out there," pointing in a north-easterly direction. "I saw her as distinctly as possible. She is about six miles away, and is stripped to her close-reefed topsails--"

"Did you see that ship out there on our port-quarter, sir?" hailed one of the men from the forecastle, interrupting Master Freddy in his tale.

"No," answered Ryan sharply. "I wasn't looking that way. What did she look like?"

"She is a square-rigged craft of about three or four hundred tons, under close-reefed topsails, lying end-on to us, sir," answered the man.

"Surely it can't be our old friend the barque that has drifted within view of us again during the darkness?" exclaimed Ryan excitedly. "Keep a good look-out for her, lads, when the next flash comes," he added in an eager tone of voice, that showed conclusively how secondary a matter the impending outburst of the elements had already become to him in view of this new discovery.

No second flash came, however, but instead of it, and almost as the last words left Ryan's lips, the clouds above us burst, and there descended from them the heaviest downpour of rain that I had ever up to that time witnessed. Those who have never beheld a tropical thunder-shower can form no conception of what it is like. Imagine yourself to be standing immediately under a large tank of warm water, and then further imagine that the contents of this tank are suddenly capsized right on top of you; multiply the quant.i.ty of falling water a million times, and suppose the descent of the water to be continued for from three to six or seven minutes, and you will then have an imperfect conception of the sort of drenching that we received on the occasion of which I am now speaking.

The decks were flooded in an instant, and before I could wriggle into my oil-skins I was soaked to the skin, and the warm water was washing above my ankles with the roll of the schooner. The scuppers were wholly inadequate to the occasion, and we were obliged to open the ports to get rid of the water and prevent it from getting below. The downpour lasted some four minutes or so, ceasing as abruptly and with as little warning as it had commenced; but in that time it had beaten down the swell so effectually that our motion was scarcely more perceptible than it would have been in a well-sheltered roadstead; and the effect of the sudden cessation of the noises that had been so recently sounding in our ears, and of the crash of the downpour, was very weird and curious, the dead silence now being broken only by an occasional faint creak or jar of bulkhead or boom, and the loud gush and gurgle of the water pouring from the scuppers.

The silence was of no long duration, however, for we had scarcely found time to become sensible of it when a faint moaning sound arose in the air, coming from no one knew where; and, presently, with a still louder moan, a sudden, furious, scuffle of wind swept past us, causing our reefed foresail to flap loudly, and was gone. The moanings grew louder and more weird, sounding now on the port-quarter, now on the starboard bow, then broad abeam, and anon high over our mastheads; it was clear that small, partial currents of air were in violent motion all round us, and that the crisis was at hand.

The Pirate Slaver--by Harry Collingwood

CHAPTER EIGHT.

CAUGHT IN A CYCLONE.

The watch below had been dismissed upon the completion of our work of preparation, but not a man had left the deck, their anxiety to see and know the worst of what was to befall having completely overcome their usual propensity to make the utmost of every moment allotted to them for necessary rest, and they were now all huddled and cl.u.s.tered together upon the forecastle, discussing the situation in low, murmured tones, and holding themselves in readiness, like hounds in the leash, to spring into activity at the first word of command.

The moaning and wailing sounds were now floating all round us, and presently, making itself rapidly audible above them, we became conscious of a deep, fierce, bellowing roar that seemed to be approaching us on our starboard beam, the schooner's head being then about north-west.

"Here it comes!" exclaimed Ryan, in a hoa.r.s.e tone of suppressed excitement. "Get hold of a belaying-pin each, you two, or you will stand a very good chance of being blown overboard. Starboard your helm; hard over with it, my man. Get under the lee of the starboard bulwarks, men. Carpenter, are your axes ready in case we should be obliged to cut anything away?"

"All ready, sir," came the reply, scarcely audible above the roar of the tempest that was now close upon us; and as the man spoke a fierce gust of wind laden with salt mist swooped down upon us and careened the schooner almost to her covering-board as it filled the foresail with a jar and a report like that of a nine-pounder. This blast was only momentary, however, it was upon us and gone again in an instant, but it was quickly succeeded by others; and then, away in the gloom, right abeam of us, appeared a white, spectral glimmer swooping down upon the schooner with the speed of a race-horse, and spreading momentarily wider athwart the blackness as it came. It was a line of white foam churned up on the surface of the sea by the advancing hurricane, and all behind it the ocean was white as milk. The air was now in violent motion all about us, fierce eddies swooping hither and thither, but generally in the same direction as that from which the gale was approaching. Another heavy salt-laden gust struck us, lasting just long enough to give the schooner way and render her obedient to her helm, and then the deep ba.s.s roar rose into a deafening, yelling medley of indescribable sounds as the gale struck us, and the poor little schooner bowed beneath the blow until the water poured in over her lee gunwale and I thought that she was going to "turn the turtle" with us. The foresail stood the strain for just an instant, and then it split to ribbons, and was torn from the bolt-ropes as cleanly as though the work had been done with a knife.

But the good sail had already done its work before the hurricane proper had struck us, in that it had imparted some life, even though ever so little, to the schooner; she was already paying slowly off when the first stroke of the hurricane beat her down, and she continued to do so until, as she got dead before it, she rose suddenly to an even keel and went scudding away to leeward like a frightened sea-bird. The awful volume of sound given out by the fierce, headlong swoop of the wind as it bore down upon us quite prepared me to see both masts blown clean out of the schooner; but all her gear fortunately happened to be sound and good, and the loss of the foresail was the full extent of the damage sustained by us.

Having satisfied myself upon that point, I ventured to raise my head a little above the bulwarks to see how the strange sail was faring.

Pierrepoint had reported her as being visible in the north-eastern quarter, and if this were so she ought now to be somewhere astern of us, since we were running off about south-west; and, sure enough, there she was, about a point and a half on our starboard quarter, just visible in the midst of the ghostly glare of the phosph.o.r.escent foam. She was, like ourselves, running dead before the gale, and I thought I could make out that her topsails had withstood the tremendous strain of the outburst and were still doing their duty. If this were so, since we were scudding under bare poles, she would soon overtake and pa.s.s us quite as closely as would be at all consistent with the safety of the two craft, and we should be afforded an opportunity to learn something of her character, and to judge whether she was the barque that we had been so industriously seeking. I made my way over to Ryan, who was standing--as well as he could against the violence of the wind that threatened to sweep him off his feet--close to the helmsman, pointed toward the stranger, and, clinging to the companion, we stood and watched her for a minute or two, half suffocated with the difficulty of breathing in so furious a tempest. She was now about four miles from us, and it soon became apparent that she was overhauling us fast, although by no means so fast as I expected; and she was so nearly end-on to us that I suggested to Ryan the advisability of our showing a light, as it looked very much as though she had not yet seen us and might approach us so closely as to put both craft in imminent peril.

"All in good time," shouted the captain in my ear, in response to this suggestion. "I do not believe that she _has_ seen us yet; but that is not of much consequence, since both of us are steering as steadily as pleasure-boats on a river, and I will take care to make her acquainted with our whereabouts if there appears to be the slightest danger of her running over us. But I want her to pa.s.s as near us as possible, so that we may have a good view of her. For there seems to me to be a something familiar-looking about her, as though I had seen her before; and, between you and me, Harry, I believe her to be our old friend the barque again. And, if so, we must keep up with her at all costs until the weather moderates sufficiently to bring her to; so just step for'ard, will you, my lad, and get the fore-trysail on deck and bent ready for setting in case we need it. And let one hand bring aft a lantern, _not_ lighted, mind ye; he can take it below, light it _there_, and leave it at the foot of the companion-ladder all ready to show a light if yonder stranger seems likely to sheer too close to us in pa.s.sing."

I went forward, as requested, and found that the watch below had already returned to their hammocks, the crisis having pa.s.sed, and the schooner scudding as comfortably as could be before the gale. The trysail was got up from below, bent, halliards and sheets hooked on, and, in short, made all ready for setting, and I returned aft to Ryan's side, having to claw my way to him along the rail in preference to creeping along the deck upon all fours, which seemed to be the only alternative method of making headway against the wind. The sea was by this time getting up, and the air was full of spume and scud-water, caught up from the surface of the sea and the crests of the waves and swept along in a blinding, drenching shower by the gale. My superior officer was still clinging to the companion, with his eyes intently fixed upon the strange sail astern, which, now that the dense ma.s.ses of cloud overhead were torn into shreds of flying scud by the fury of the wind, was pretty distinctly visible, at a distance of about a mile and a half, by the dim, misty moonlight that filtered through.

"I've been trying to get a peep at her through my night-gla.s.s,"

exclaimed Ryan, with a wave of his hand toward the dark blotch in the midst of the white foam, "but there is no holding it in such a breeze as this; you have to keep a tight grip on the thing or the wind will take it away from you altogether. But I'm pretty certain that it is the barque; and if so I'll stick to her as long as this schooner will hang together."

"Do you think that she has seen us yet?" I asked.

"Yes, I fancy so," answered Ryan. "She appears to me to be edging away a trifle, so as to pa.s.s us to starboard, giving us as wide a berth as possible. But even although she may have seen us, I do not believe that we are recognised, as yet; indeed, how should we be? At this distance, and end-on as we are, with no canvas set and our topmasts struck, we must look like little more than a dot on the water."

This was quite true, and I fully believed, with Ryan, that we had _not_ been recognised, for although our companion had indeed manifested signs of an inclination to edge away from us, the tendency was only to a sufficient extent to insure her pa.s.sing us in safety. Had she suspected us of being an enemy, it would not have been positively dangerous for her to have altered her course fully a point, although, blowing as it then did, it would have been exceedingly imprudent to have attempted more than that.

In about half-an-hour after I had joined Ryan the strange craft overtook us; but while she was yet some half-a-mile astern of us we had made her out to be a barque of just about the same size as the one that we had been hunting for; and when she came up abreast of us at a distance of not more than a quarter of a mile, we saw that her main-topmast had gone just at the cap, and her people were still busy with the wreck of it; a pretty tough job they seemed to be having with it, too. That she was much more strongly-manned than is usually the case with a merchantman of her size was also evident, for we could see that while one gang was at work clearing away the wreck, another was busy securing the fore-topmast by getting up preventer-backstays, and so on. How they managed to work aloft at all in such terrific weather pa.s.sed my comprehension; but there they were, at least _trying_ to do something. And, as Ryan remarked, it showed conclusively what a resolute set of fellows they were on board her, and afforded us a clue as to the sort of resistance we were likely to meet with should it ever come to a game of fisticuffs between them and ourselves.

Having once overtaken us she seemed to very quickly pa.s.s ahead, and when she was once more about two miles distant, Ryan gave the order to set the storm fore-trysail, a step that we might then very well take without exciting any very strong suspicion on board the barque as to our ulterior intentions, since the sea was by this time getting up to an extent which made the exhibition of a small amount of canvas on board the schooner not only justifiable but absolutely necessary. The sail was accordingly set, and all risk of being p.o.o.ped was, for the time at least, done away with, and what was almost of equal importance in our eyes, we now appeared to be holding our own with the sail ahead.

The watch had just been called when we noticed that the wind was backing further round from the northward--a pretty conclusive indication that it was a cyclone, or revolving storm, that we had encountered--and Ryan began to be exceedingly anxious upon the subject of heaving-to, since, as he explained to me, every mile that we now travelled carried us nearer to the terrible vortex or "eye" of the storm. Still he could not bring himself to do so while the barque held on, thus allowing her to effect her escape from us a second time--a.s.suming, of course, that she really was, as we very strongly suspected, our former acquaintance; it was therefore with a feeling of considerable satisfaction that we shortly afterwards saw her start her fore-topsail sheets with the evident intention of clewing up the sail, if possible, preparatory to heaving-to.

"Ah!" exclaimed Ryan, admiringly, "that fellow is no fool; he scents danger ahead; he has been in a cyclone before to-day, I'll warrant, and seems to know exactly what he is about. There goes his topsail, clean out of the bolt-ropes, as I expected it would; but I do not suppose he ever seriously hoped to save the sail. And now over goes his helm, and there he rounds-to--ah-h! look at _that_! on her beam-ends, by all that's--no--no--she is righting again--good! very prettily done, _v-e-r-y_ prettily done indeed! _Now_ she luffs!--excellent! capital!

You are all safe now, my man. We will run down to him, Harry, my bhoy, and heave-to about a mile to leeward of him; then perhaps he will not suspect us; he will gradually settle down towards us, as we shall lie closer than he will; and when the wind drops we shall have him to do as we like with."

It was a very anxious moment with us when, having run down to the spot selected by Ryan, we eased the helm over to bring the schooner to _on the starboard tack_--that being the correct tack upon which to heave-to in a cyclone in the northern hemisphere--and I shall never forget the feeling of absolute helplessness that seized me when, as our little craft gradually presented her broadside to the gale, I felt her going over--over--over--until the water poured in a raging cataract over her lee rail, and she laid down beneath the strength of the howling blast-- that now seemed to have suddenly increased to twice its former fury-- until the lee side of her deck was buried almost to the combings of the hatchways. But as her bows came round and presented themselves more obliquely to the gale she righted somewhat, and although she still careened until her lee rail was all but awash, she rode the furious seas as gallantly and buoyantly as a gull.

Ryan had displayed a very considerable amount of judgment in conducting the schooner down to the berth he had chosen for her, and had placed her there in so natural a manner that we scarcely believed it possible that our presence so near the barque would be likely to arouse any suspicions of our intentions in the minds of her crew; and as we had never been very near her during the time of our former pursuit of her, we were in hopes that we should not now be recognised. We had taken up a position exactly to leeward of our neighbour; and, as Ryan had antic.i.p.ated, we soon found that the schooner was looking up a full point higher than the bigger craft; but this was very evenly balanced by the greater amount of lee drift that we made, in consequence of our much lighter draught; we therefore, contrived to maintain our position with almost perfect exact.i.tude, except that the schooner manifested the greater tendency to forge ahead, thus placing herself gradually further upon the barque's lee bow.

The wind continued to blow with unabated fury, and when day broke and we were able to look about us, the scene was grand and awful beyond all power of description. The sky was of an uniform deep, slaty, purple-grey hue, across the face of which careered a constant succession of lighter grey, smoky-looking clouds, all shredded and torn to tatters by the headlong sweep of the gale. The colour of the sea was a dirty green, deepening in tint to purple-black in the hollows, and capped by long ridges of dirty yellowish foam, that was continuously s.n.a.t.c.hed up by the wind and hurled through the air in drenching sheets that cut and stung the skin like the lash of a whip. The sea, although not so high as might have been expected from the force of the wind, was still formidable enough to be almost terrifying in its aspect as it swept down upon the schooner in long, steep, mountain-like ridges, that soared to nearly half the height of our main cross-trees, with a hollow of fully one hundred and eighty feet in width between them, each wave crowned with a roaring, foaming crest that reared itself above our low hull as though eager to hurl itself upon and destroy us.

As the day wore on we received a temporary addition to our company, in the shape of a brig. She hove in sight in the eastern quarter, about six bells in the forenoon watch; and the first sight that we got of her revealed that her jib-boom and both her topmasts were gone. She was showing a storm-staysail; and at first sight we supposed her to be hove-to; but she drove down towards us so fast that we soon came to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with her steering-gear, and as she drew nearer it became evident that she was unmanageable, falling off occasionally until she was almost dead before the wind; and we could see that whenever this happened the sea made a clean breach over her. When within about a mile of us she showed the Russian ensign, upside down, in her main-rigging, to which we responded by hoisting Spanish colours--to lull any doubts that might possibly be lurking in the minds of our friends on board the barque, who did not condescend to favour us with a sight of their bunting. As for the brig, she drove straight down towards us, occasioning us a considerable amount of anxiety, for so erratic were her movements that when she had arrived within a couple of cables' lengths of us it became impossible to say whether she would pa.s.s ahead or astern of us. The only thing that we could do to avoid her was to fill upon the schooner and forge ahead out of her way, and this we would have done but for the possibility that after our having done so the brig might take a sheer in the wrong direction and fall foul of us, when the destruction of the schooner, if not of both vessels, must inevitably have happened. At length it became evident that something must be done, for she was settling bodily down upon us, and another two minutes would bring the two craft into collision.

Ryan therefore ordered the helm to be shifted, and we were just forging clear, as we thought, and leaving her room to pa.s.s under our stern, when a terrific sea swept down upon her, throwing her quarter round, sweeping her from stem to stern, and driving her crew into the rigging, and in an instant there she was, driving along stem-on right for us--or, rather, for the spot that we should occupy when she reached it. There was now only one way of avoiding a disastrous collision, and that was by putting our helm hard up, and, at all risks, jibing round upon the other tack; and this we accordingly did, missing the brig by a hair's-breadth, but springing our foremast-head so badly as the trysail jibed over, that we had to get in the sail at once, and set a close-reefed main-staysail instead. As for the brig, she was little better than a wreck, for as she drove past us we saw that her rudder was gone, her bulwarks carried away on both sides, from cat-head to taffrail, and her decks swept of everything that was movable. It was of course utterly impossible for us to help them in any way in the wind and sea that then raged; nor could we follow them in their helpless progress to leeward, and stand by them, the damage to our foremast being so serious as to utterly preclude the possibility of getting any headsail upon the schooner until it had been at least temporarily repaired, while the little hooker, having again been brought-to on the starboard tack, absolutely refused to pay off under her staysail only, which was perhaps just as well, so far as we were concerned, since any attempt on our part to run to leeward would almost certainly have resulted in the swamping of the schooner. What became of the brig, and whether she outlived the gale or not, we never knew, for she continued her erratic course to leeward, and we lost sight of her in about an hour and a half from the time when she so nearly fell on board us, and we saw her no more. But she was driving in a direction that would carry her right into the track of the vortex of the storm, to encounter which, in her wrecked and helpless condition, would infallibly mean her destruction.

As the day wore on, the wind gradually shifted round further from the eastward, and by nightfall it was blowing from about east-south-east, and showing some signs of moderating, although it still blew very heavily; much too heavily indeed to justify us in sending any hands aloft to fish our sprung mast-head. Nevertheless, every preparation was made for the commencement of the operation at the earliest possible moment, as we had detected signs on board the barque indicative of an intention to send a new main-topmast up without delay; which might or might not mean that a suspicion as to our true character had begun to dawn upon them. By midnight the gale had moderated to a strong breeze, and the sky had cleared sufficiently to permit of a little moonlight percolating through between the denser clouds, and we were then able to make out--to our inexpressible chagrin--that the barque's people had already got their new topmast aloft and ridded, and were getting their main-topsail-yard across, having been hard at work, doubtless, ever since darkness set in, though how they had managed to perform their task was a puzzle to us. It was, however, another evidence of the resolute character of their skipper; another hint to us that we should have all our work cut out to bag him; and the carpenter was therefore at once sent for, and set forthwith to the task of fishing our mast-head with all possible expedition. The task was not half executed, however, when we had the mortification to see our neighbour sheet home his double-reefed topsails and make sail to the westward. This sight put our men upon their mettle; they could vividly picture to themselves the laugh that the slavers would be enjoying at our expense, should they have suspected our intentions toward them, and before the barque was absolutely out of sight from aloft, Chips had managed to make such a job of his work as enabled us to make sail also.

Daylight brought with it a clear sky, dappled with high, fleecy, white, fine-weather clouds, and a moderate breeze from the south-east, with a very heavy, confused sea still running, however; and as the barque's royals were still in sight above the horizon, we cracked on after her, although the carpenter had warned Ryan that the work done during the night was scarcely as satisfactory as might be, and that the mast-head was hardly to be trusted. But the fellow was a thoroughly good man, and eager to avoid all possibility of it being said that we had lost the chance of a prize through him. As soon therefore as it was light enough to see, he was aloft again; and by eight bells he had finished his work, and reported that we might now pack sail upon the schooner to our hearts' content, which we forthwith did, giving her everything that would draw, from the royal down, the wind being very nearly aft, that is to say, about two points on the larboard quarter. By noon it became apparent that we were gaining, although but slowly, on the barque, her royals and half her topgallant-sails being by this time above the horizon; and now all was anxiety on board the schooner as to the character of the coming night; for we had no doubt that, seeing, as they now must, that we were following them, the ever-vigilant suspicions of the barque's people would prompt them to avoid us should the night prove dark enough to permit of such a manoeuvre. The indications were all for fine weather, however; the gla.s.s was rising steadily, the sky was becoming of a deeper clearer blue; the white clouds were melting away, promising a clear, star-lit night between the hours of sunset and moonrise, and, what was equally as much in our favour, both wind and sea were going down steadily.