The Red Rover Part 24

"I have heard that false colours have been seen on the coast, and that ships have been plundered, and their people and pa.s.sengers maltreated, during the past summer. It is even thought that the famous Rover has tired of his excesses on the Spanish Main, and that a vessel was not long since seen in the Caribbean sea, which was thought to be the cruiser of that desperate pirate!"

Wilder made no reply. His eyes, which had been fastened steadily, though respectfully, on those of the speaker, fell to the deck, and he appeared to await whatever her further pleasure might choose to utter. The governess mused a moment; and then, with a change in the expression of her countenance which proved that her suspicion of the truth was too light to continue without further and better confirmation, she added,--

"After all, the occupation of a slaver is bad enough, and unhappily by far too probable, to render it necessary to attribute any worse character to the stranger. I would I knew the motive of your singular a.s.sertions, Mr Wilder?"

"I cannot better explain them, Madam: unless my manner produces its effect, I fail altogether in my intentions, which at least are sincere."

"Is not the risk lessened by your presence?"

"Lessened, but not removed."

Until now, Gertrude had rather listened, as if unavoidably, than seemed to make one of the party. But here she turned quickly, and perhaps a little impatiently, to Wilder, and, while her cheeks glowed she demanded, with a smile that might have brought even a more obdurate man to his confession,--

"Is it forbidden to be more explicit?"

The young Commander hesitated, perhaps as much to dwell upon the ingenuous features of the speaker, as to decide upon his answer. The colour mounted into his own embrowned cheek, and his eye lighted with a gleam of open pleasure; then, as though suddenly reminded that he was delaying to reply, he said,--

"I am certain, that, in relying on your discretion, I shall be safe."

"Doubt it not," returned Mrs Wyllys. "In no event shall you ever be betrayed."

"Betrayed! For myself, Madam, I have little fear. If you suspect me of personal apprehension you do me great injustice."

"We suspect you of nothing unworthy," said Gertrude hastily, "but--we are very anxious for ourselves."

"Then will I relieve your uneasiness, though at the expense of"----

A call, from one of the mates to the other, arrested his words for the moment, and drew his attention to the neighbouring ship.

"The slaver's people have just found out that their ship is not made to put in a gla.s.s case, to be looked at by women and children," cried the speaker in tones loud enough to send his words into the fore-top, where the messmate he addressed was attending to some especial duty.

"Ay, ay," was the answer; "seeing us in motion, has put him in mind of his next voyage. They keep watch aboard the fellow, like the sun in Greenland six months on deck, and six months below!"

The witticism produced, as usual, a laugh among the seamen, who continued their remarks in a similar vein, but in tones more suited to the deference due to their superiors.

The eyes, however, of Wilder had fastened themselves on the other ship.

The man so long seated on the end of the main-yard had disappeared, and another sailor was deliberately walking along the opposite quarter of the same spar, steadying himself by the boom, and holding in one hand the end of a rope, which he was apparently about to reeve in the place where it properly belonged. The first glance told Wilder that the latter was Fid, who was so far recovered from his debauch as to tread the giddy height with as much, if not greater, steadiness than he would have rolled along the ground, had his duty called him to terra firma. The countenance of the young man, which, an instant before, had been flushed with excitement, and which was beaming with the pleasure of an opening confidence, changed directly to a look of gloom and reserve. Mrs Wyllys who had lost no shade of the varying expression of his face, resumed the discourse, with some earnestness, where he had seen fit so abruptly to break it off.

"You would relieve us," she said, "at the expense of"----

"Life, Madam; but not of honour."

"Gertrude, we can now retire to our cabin," observed Mrs Wyllys, with an air of cold displeasure, in which disappointment was a good deal mingled with resentment at the trifling of which she believed herself the subject.

The eye of Gertrude was no less averted and distant than that of her governess, while the tint that gave l.u.s.tre to its beam was brighter, if not quite so resentful. As the two moved past the silent Wilder, each dropped a distant salute, and then our adventurer found himself the sole occupant of the quarter-deck. While his crew were busied in coiling ropes, and clearing the decks, their young Commander leaned his head on the taffrail, (that part of the vessel which the good relict of the Rear-Admiral had so strangely confounded with a very different object in the other end of the ship), remaining for many minutes in an att.i.tude of deep abstraction. From this reverie he was at length aroused, by a sound like that produced by the lifting and falling of a light oar into the water. Believing himself about to be annoyed by visiters from the land, he raised his head, and cast a dissatisfied glance over the vessel's side, to see who was approaching.

A light skiff, such as is commonly used by fishermen in the bays and shallow waters of America, was lying within ten feet of the ship, and in a position where it was necessary to take some little pains in order to observe it. It was occupied by a single man, whose back was towards the vessel, and who was apparently abroad on the ordinary business of the owner of such a boat.

"Are you in search of rudder-fish, my friend, that you hang so closely under my counter?" demanded Wilder. "The bay is said to be full of delicious ba.s.s, and other scaly gentlemen, that would far better repay your trouble."

"He is well paid who gets the bite he baits for," returned the other, turning his head, and exhibiting the cunning eye and chuckling countenance of old Bob Bunt, as Wilder's recent and treacherous confederate had announced his name to be.

"How now! Dare you trust yourself with me, in five-fathom water, after the villanous trick you have seen fit"--

"Hist! n.o.ble Captain, hist!" interrupted Bob, holding up a finger, to repress the other's animation, and intimating, by a sign, that their conference must be held in lower tones; "there is no need to call all hands to help us through a little chat. In what way have I fallen to leeward of your favour, Captain?"

"In what way, sirrah! Did you not receive money, to give such a character of this ship to the ladies as (you said yourself) would make them sooner pa.s.s the night in a churchyard, than trust foot on board her?"

"Something of the sort pa.s.sed between us, Captain; but you forgot one half of the conditions, and I overlooked the other; and I need not tell so expert a navigator, that two halves make a whole. No wonder, therefore, that the affair dropt through between us."

"How! Do you add falsehood to perfidy? What part of my engagement did I neglect?"

"What part!" returned the pretended fisherman, leisurely drawing in a line, which the quick eye of Wilder saw, though abundantly provided with lead at the end, was dest.i.tute of the equally material implement--the hook; "What part, Captain! No less a particular than the second guinea."

"It was to have been the reward of a service done, and not an earnest, like its fellow, to induce you to undertake the duty."

"Ah! you have helped me to the very word I wanted. I fancied it was not in earnest, like the one I got, and so I left the job half finished."

"Half finished, scoundrel! you never commenced what you swore so stoutly to perform."

"Now are you on as wrong a course, my Master, as if you steered due east to get to the Pole. I religiously performed one half my undertaking; and, you will acknowledge, I was only half paid."

"You would find it difficult to prove that you even did that little."

"Let us look into the log. I enlisted to walk up the hill as far as the dwelling of the good Admiral's widow, and there to make certain alterations in my sentiments, which it is not necessary to speak of between us."

"Which you did not make; but, on the contrary, which you thwarted, by telling an exactly contradictory tale."

"True."

"True! knave?--Were justice done you, an acquaintance with a rope's end would be a merited reward."

"A squall of words!--If your ship steer as wild as your ideas, Captain, you will make a crooked pa.s.sage to the south. Do you not think it an easier matter, for an old man like me, to tell a few lies than to climb yonder long and heavy hill? In strict justice, more than half my duty was done when I got into the presence of the believing widow; and when I concluded to refuse the half of the reward that was unpaid, and to take bounty from t'other side."

"Villain!" exclaimed Wilder, a little blinded by resentment, "even your years shall no longer protect you from punishment. Forward, there! send a crew into the jolly boat, sir, and bring me this old fellow in the skiff on board the ship. Pay no attention to his outcries; I have an account to settle with him, that cannot be balanced without a little noise."

The mate, to whom this order was addressed, and who had answered the hail, jumped on the rail, where he got sight of the craft he was commanded to chase. In less than a minute he was in the boat, with four men, and pulling round the bows of the ship, in order to get on the side necessary to effect his object. The self-styled Bob Bunt gave one or two strokes with his skulls, and sent, the skiff some twenty or thirty fathoms off, where he lay, chuckling like a man who saw only the success of his cunning, without any apparent apprehensions of the consequences. But, the moment the boat appeared in view, he laid himself to the work with vigorous arms, and soon convinced the spectators that his capture was not to be achieved without abundant difficulty.

For some little time, it was doubtful what course the fugitive meant to take; for he kept whirling and turning in swift and sudden circles, completely confusing and baffling his pursuers, by his skilful and light evolutions. But, soon tiring of this taunting amus.e.m.e.nt, or perhaps apprehensive of exhausting his own strength, which was powerfully and most dexterously exerted, it was not long before he darted off in a perfectly straight line, taking the direction of the "Rover."

The chase now grew hot and earnest, exciting the clamour and applause of most of the nautical spectators The result, for a time, seemed doubtful; but, if any thing, the jolly boat, though some distance astern, began to gain, as it gradually overcame the resistance of the water. In a very few minutes, however, the skiff shot under the stern of the other ship, and disappeared, bringing the hull of the vessel in a line with the "Caroline"

and its course. The pursuers were not long in taking the same direction and then the seamen of the latter ship began, laughingly to climb the rigging, in order to command a further view, over the intervening object.

Nothing, however, was to be seen beyond but water, and the still more distant island, with its little fort. In a few minutes, the crew of the jolly boat were observed pulling back in their path, returning slowly, like men who were disappointed. All crowded to the side of the ship, in order to hear the termination of the adventure; the noisy a.s.semblage even drawing the two pa.s.sengers from the cabin to the deck. Instead, however, of meeting the questions of their shipmates with the usual wordy narrative of men of their condition, the crew of the boat wore startled and bewildered looks. Their officer sprang to the deck without speaking, and immediately sought his Commander.

"The skiff was too light for you, Mr Nighthead," Wilder calmly observed, as the other approached, having never moved, himself, from the place where he had been standing during the whole proceeding.

"Too light, sir! Are you acquainted with the man who pulled it?"