Tom Cringle's Log Part 10

"My dear fellow, can't you wait a bit, and let us have a rattle at that chap?" And old Crowfoot, who never bore a grudge long, seemed much inclined to fall in with the soldier's views; and, in fine, although the weather was now moderate, he did not make sail. Presently the Commodore fired a gun, and showed lights. It was the signal to close. "Oh, time enough," said old Crowfoot--"what is the old man afraid of?" Another gun and a fresh constellation on board the frigate. It was "an enemy in the northwest quarter."

"Hah, hah," sung out the agent, "is it so? Major, what say you to a brush let her close, eh?--should like to pepper her--wouldn't you--three hundred men, eh?"

By this time we were all on deck--the schooner came bowling along under a reefed mainsail and jib, now rising, and presently disappearing behind the stormy heavings of the roaring sea, the rising moon shining brightly on her canva.s.s pinions, as if she had been an albatross skimming along the surface of the foaming water, while her broad white streak glanced like a silver ribbon along her clear black side. She was a very large craft of her cla.s.s, long and low in the water, and evidently very fast; and it was now clear, from our having been unable as yet to sway up our fore-topmast, that she took us for a disabled merchantman, which might be cut off from the convoy.

As she approached, we could perceive by the bright moonlight, that she had six guns of a side, and two long ones on pivots, the one forward on the forecastle, and the other choke up to the mainmast.

Her deck was crowded with dark figures, pike and cutla.s.s in hand; we were by this time so near that we could see pistols in their belts, and a trumpet in the hand of a man who stood in the fore rigging, with his feet on the hammock netting, and his back against the shrouds. We had cleared away our six eighteen-pound carronades, which composed our starboard broadside, and loaded them, each with a round shot, and a bag of two hundred musket-b.a.l.l.s, while three hundred soldiers in their foraging jackets, and with their loaded muskets in their hands, were lying on the deck, concealed by the quarters, while the blue jackets were sprawling in groups round the carronades.

I was lying down beside the gallant old Major, who had a bugler close to him, while Crowfoot was standing on the gun nearest us; but getting tired of this rec.u.mbent position, I crept aft, until I could see through a spare port.

"Why don't the rascals fire?" quoth Sawrasp.

"Oh, that would alarm the Commodore. They intend to walk quietly on board of us; but they will find themselves mistaken a little," whispered Crowfoot.

"Mind, men, no firing till the bugle sounds," said the Major.

The word was pa.s.sed along.

The schooner was by this time ploughing through it within half pistolshot, with the white water dashing away from her bows, and buzzing past her sides her crew as thick as peas on her deck. Once or twice she hauled her wind a little, and then again kept away from us, as if irresolute what to do. At length, without hailing, and all silent as the grave, she put her helm a-starboard, and ranged alongside.

"Now, my boys, give it him," shouted Crowfoot--"Fire!"

"Ready, men," shouted the Major--"Present--fire!"

The bugles sounded, the cannon roared, the musketry rattled, and the men cheered, and all was hurra, and fire, and fury. The breeze was strong enough to carry all the smoke forward, and I saw the deck of the schooner, where the moment before all was still and motionless, and filled with dark figures, till there scarcely appeared standing room, at once converted into a shambles. The blasting fiery tempest had laid low nearly the whole ma.s.s, like a maize plant before a hurricane; and such a cry arose, as if "Men fought on earth, and fiends in upper air."

Scarcely a man was on his legs, the whole crew seemed to have been levelled with the deck, many dead, no doubt, and most wounded, while we could see numbers endeavouring to creep towards the hatches, while the black blood, in horrible streams, gushed and gurgled through her scuppers down her sides, and across the bright white streak that glanced in the moonlight.

Some one on board of the privateer now hailed, "We have surrendered; cease firing, sir." But devil a bit--we continued blazing away--a lantern was run up to his main gaff, and then lowered again.

"We have struck, sir," shouted another voice, "don't murder us don't fire, sir, for G.o.dsake."

But fire we still did; no sailor has the least compunction at even running down a privateer. Mercy to privateersmen is unknown. "Give them the stem," is the word, the curs being regarded by Jack at the best as highwaymen; so, when he found we still peppered away, and sailing two feet for our one, the schooner at length, in their desperation, hauled her wind, and speedily got beyond range of our carronades, having all this time never fired a shot. Shortly after this we ran--under the Rayo's stern she was lying to.

"Mr Crowfoot what have you been after? I have a great mind to report you, sir."

"We could not help it, sir," sung out Crowfoot in a most dolorous tone, in answer to the captain of the frigate; "we have been nearly taken, sir, by a privateer, sir--an immense vessel, sir, that sails, like a witch, sir."

"Keep close in my wake then, sir," rejoined the captain, in a gruff tone, and immediately the Rayo bore up.

Next morning we were all carrying as much sail as we could crowd. By this time we had gotten our jury-fore-topmast up, and the Rayo, having kept astern in the night, was now under topsails, and top-gallant sails, with the wet canva.s.s at the head of the sails, showing that the reefs had been freshly shaken out--rolling wedge like on the swell, and rapidly shooting a-head, to resume her station. As she pa.s.sed us, and let fall her foresail, she made the signal to make more sail, her object being to get through the Caicos Pa.s.sage, into which we were now entering, before nightfall. It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon. A fine clear breezy day, fresh and pleasant, sometimes cloudy overhead, but always breaking away again, with a bit of a sneezer, and a small shower. As the sun rose there were indications of squalls in the north-eastern quarter, and about noon one of them was whitening to windward. So "hands by the topgallant clew-lines" was the word, and we were all standing by to shorten sail, when the Commodore came to the wind as sharp and suddenly as if he had anch.o.r.ed; but on a second look, I saw his sheets were let fly, haulyards let go, and apparently all was confusion on board of her. I ran to the side and looked over. The long hearing dark blue swell had changed into a light green hissing ripple.

"Zounds, Captain Crowfoot, shoal water--why it breaks--we shall be ash.o.r.e!"

"Down with the helm-brace round the yards," shouted Crow foot; "that's it steady--luff, my man;" and the danger was so imminent that even the studding-sail haulyards were not let go and the consequence was, that the booms snapped off like carrots, as we came to the wind.

"Lord help us, we shall never weather that foaming reef there set the spanker--haul out--haul down the foretopmast--staysail--so, mind your luff, my man."

The frigate now began to fire right and left, and the hissing of the shot overhead was a fearful augury of what was to take place; so sudden was the accident, that they had not had time to draw the round shot. The other transports were equally fortunate with ourselves, in weathering the shoal, and presently we were all close hauled to windward of the reef, until we weathered the easternmost p.r.o.ng, when we bore up. But, poor Rayo! she had struck on a coral reef, where the Admiralty charts laid down fifteen fathoms water; and although there was some talk at the time of an error in judgment, in not having the lead going in the chains, still do I believe there was no fault lying at the door of her gallant captain. By the time we had weathered the reef, the frigate had swung off from the pinnacle of rock on which she had been in a manner impaled, and was making all the sail she could, with a fothered sail under her bows, and chain-pumps clanging, and whole cataracts of water gushing from them, clear white jets spouting from all the scuppers, fore and aft. She made the signal to close. The next, alas! was the British ensign, seized, union down in the main rigging, the sign of the uttermost distress. Still we all bowled along together, but her yards were not squared, nor her sails set with her customary precision, and her lurches became more and more sickening, until at length she rolled so heavily, that she dipped both yardarms alternately in the water, and reeled to and fro like a drunken man.

"What is that splash?"

It was the larboard-bow long eighteen-pound gun hove overboard, and watching the roll, the whole broadside, one after another, was cast into the sea. The clang of the chain-pumps increased, the water rushed in at one side of the main-deck, and out at the other, in absolute cascades from the ports. At this moment the whole fleet of boats were alongside, keeping way with the ship, in the light breeze. Her main-topsail was hove aback, while the captain's voice resounded through the ship.

"Now, men--all hands--bags and hammocks--starboard watch, the starboard side--larboard watch, the larboard side--no rushing now--she will swim this hour to come."

The bags, and hammocks, and officers' kits, were handed into the boats; the men were told off over the side, as quietly by watches as if at muster, the officers last. At length the first lieutenant came down. By this time she was settling perceptibly in the water; but the old captain still stood on the gangway, holding by the iron stanchion, where, taking off his hat, he remained uncovered for a moment, with the tears standing in his eyes. He then replaced it, descended, and took his place in the ship's launch--the last man to leave the ship; and there was little time to spare, for we had scarcely shoved off a few yards, to clear the spars of the wreck, when she sended forward, heavily and sickly, on the long swell.--She never rose to the opposite heave of the sea again, but gradually sank by the head. The hull disappeared slowly and dignifiedly, the ensign fluttered and vanished beneath the dark ocean--I could have fancied reluctantly as if it had been drawn down through a trap-door. The topsails next disappeared, the fore-topsail sinking fastest; and last of all, the white pennant at the main-topgallant-mast head, after flickering and struggling in the wind, flew up in the setting sun as if imbued with--life, like a stream of white fire, or as if it had been the spirit leaving the body, and was then drawn down into the abyss, and the last vestige of the Rayo vanished for ever.

The crew, as if moved by one common impulse, gave three cheers.

The captain now stood up in his boat--"Men, the Rayo is no more, but it is my duty to tell you, that although you are now to be distributed amongst the transports, you are still amenable to martial law; I am aware, men, this hint may not be necessary, still it is right you should know it."

When the old hooker clipped out of sight, there was not a dry eye in the whole fleet. "There she goes, the dear old beauty," said one of her crew.

"There goes the blessed old black b----h," quoth another. "Ah, many a merry night have we had in the clever little craft," quoth a third; and there was really a tolerable shedding of tears and squirting of tobacco juice. But the blue ripple had scarcely blown over the gla.s.slike surface of the sea where she had sunk, when the buoyancy of young hearts, with the prospect of a good furlough amongst the lobster boxes for a time, seemed to be uppermost amongst the men. The officers, I saw and knew, felt very differently.

"My eye!" sung out an old quartermaster incur boat, perched well forward with his back against the ring in the stem, and his arms crossed, after having been busily employed rummaging in his bag, "my eye, what a pity--oh, what a pity!"

Come, there is some feeling, genuine, at all events, thought I.

"My," said Bill Chestree, the captain of the foretop, "what is can't be helped, old Fizgig; old Rayo has gone down, and"--"Old Rayo be d----d, Master Bill," said the man; "but may I be flogged, if I han't forgotten half a pound of negro head baccy in d.i.c.k Catgut's bag."

"Launch ahoy!" hailed a half drunken voice from one of the boats astern of us. "Hillo," responded the c.o.xswain. The poor skipper even p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "Have you got d.i.c.k Catgut's fiddle among ye?" This said d.i.c.k Catgut was the corporal of marines, and the prime instigator of all the fun amongst the men. "No, no," said several voices, "no fiddle here." The hail pa.s.sed round among the other boats, "No fiddle." "I would rather lose three days grog than have his fiddle mislaid," quoth the man who pulled the bow oar.

"Why don't you ask d.i.c.k himself?" said our c.o.xswain.

"Aye--true enough--d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k Catgut!" but no one answered. Alas! poor d.i.c.k was nowhere to be found; he had been mislaid as well as his fiddle.

He had broken into the spirit room, as it turned out, and having got drunk, did not come to time when the frigate sunk.

Our ship, immediately after the frigate's crew had been bestowed, and the boats got in, hoisted the Commodore's light, and the following morning we fell in with the Torch, off the east end of Jamaica, which, after seeing the transports safe into Kingston, and taking out me and my people, bore up through the Gulf, and resumed her cruising ground on the edge of the Gulf stream, between 25 degrees and 30 degrees north lat.i.tude.

CHAPTER III.--The Quenching of the Torch.

"Then rose from sea to sky, the wild farewell."

BYRON, DON JUAN, II. 409

The evening was closing in dark and rainy, with every appearance of a gale from the westward, and the weather had become so thick and boisterous, that the lieutenant of the watch had ordered the look-out at the mast-head down on deck. The man, on his way down, had gone into the maintop to bring away some things he had placed there in going aloft, and was in the act of leaving it, when he sung out,--"A sail on the weather-bow."

"What does she look like?"

"Can't rightly say, sir; she is in the middle of the thick weather to windward."

"Stay where you are a little.--Jenkins, jump forward, and see what you can make of her from the foreyard."

Whilst the topman was obeying his instructions, the look-out again hailed "She is a ship, sir, close-hauled on the same tack----the weather clears, and I can see her now."