Under the Meteor Flag Part 17

While the two were thus engaged, I conducted Francesca below, and having indicated to her the small but luxuriously-furnished sleeping cabin of the owner, proposed that she should take possession thereof, and endeavour to recruit her somewhat exhausted energies by procuring, if possible, a few hours' sleep. I then returned to the deck, and found my "crew" in the act of getting up the anchor. This was soon done, the head-sails were trimmed, and under a gentle westerly breeze we proceeded to work out of the bay.

As the cutter had a boat of her own towing astern, I cast adrift the one we had "borrowed," and left her to take her chance of drifting ash.o.r.e and finding her way once more into her proper owner's hands.

Shortly after leaving our anchorage we pa.s.sed close to leeward of a long rakish-looking lateener, on board which, as ill-luck would have it, an anchor-watch was being kept. I suppose the circ.u.mstance of our getting under way at so unusual an hour must have attracted attention on board this craft, at all events the casting adrift of the sh.o.r.e-boat had been observed; and as we approached we were hailed from her deck with an inquiry as to whether we were aware that one of our boats had gone adrift.

"Ay, ay," replied Giaccomo, "we know it; it is all right: we shall pick her up presently, but we do not care to tack just now in this light wind for fear of-- Diavolo! hold your tongue, you son of a boiled monkey, or I will let daylight into you on one side and out on the other."

The latter part of this speech had been addressed to our prisoner, who, encouraged by the close proximity of the two vessels, had without a sign of warning lifted up his voice and shouted with all the power of his lungs,--

"_Perfidie! nous som--_" The remainder of the sentence had been choked back by the iron grasp of Giaccomo's hand upon the lad's throat, the dagger being flashed before his eyes and the threat hissed into his ears at the same moment.

But it was enough, the mischief had been done. As we glided past the craft's stern we saw the man on watch dart to the companion and disappear, returning to the deck in less than a minute, accompanied by another individual, whose fluttering white garment sufficiently indicated that he had come direct from his berth without waiting to observe the decencies of ordinary life. He, too, hailed us, but we wasted no breath in attempting to reply, fully aware that nothing we could say would allay the suspicion which had been aroused. Instead therefore of shouting back, and possibly attracting the attention of other craft, we devoted all our energies to tr.i.m.m.i.n.g our canvas to the best advantage, and packing upon the cutter every rag we could set.

"Per Baccho!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Giaccomo between his set teeth, addressing the author of the mischief, and emphasising his remarks with a smart prod of the knife in the most fleshy part of that misguided individual's person, "I have a great mind to slash your throat open, and then launch you overboard as a breakfast to the sharks. You have drawn upon us the attention of that rascally guarda-costa, the captain of which will not be satisfied until he has received a full explanation of your remark.

But, maledetto! remember this, the moment our capture seems certain I will slit you up as I would a sardine,"--appropriate gesture with the knife,--"so if you object to being slit open like a sardine you will give me all the help you can. You comprehend?"

The lad comprehended so well that he was frightened half out of his wits, and went round the deck, taking an extra pull here, easing off half an inch of sheet there, shifting the water-casks, and, in short, doing all he knew to increase the speed of the cutter, glancing anxiously astern at the guarda-costa in the intervals, and from her to his dreaded shipmate.

Of course I am aware that I ought to have interfered and put a stop to this terrorism on the part of the hot-blooded Corsican, and I _should_ have done so, had there appeared any probability of his executing his sanguinary threats; but I had already seen enough of him to believe that his bark was a great deal worse than his bite, and so, as the prisoner had evidently got us into what might prove a very awkward sc.r.a.pe, I was willing that he should not be allowed to go altogether unpunished.

It was even as Giaccomo had foreseen. We were scarcely a mile from the guarda-costa when we saw her canvas drooping in heavy festoons from her long tapering yards, and by the time that we had increased our distance to a couple of miles her anchor was a-trip, and she was sweeping round on her way out after us.

I called my aide aft and asked him whether he knew the craft.

"Too well, signor," he replied. "It has been my lot to be chased by her often, and many an anxious moment has she caused me. She has the name of being the fastest sailer inside the Gut, and she is the terror of every honest smuggler round the coast here."

"Ho, ho!" said I. "So that is how the land lies, is it, master Giaccomo? You have been a bit of a smuggler in your time, eh?"

"Yes," he frankly returned, "and not so very long ago either. And I should have been taken to a certainty, had not a shot from one of your cruisers turned yonder inquisitive gentleman back."

"Let us hope we may meet with a similar slice of luck this time," said I. "Do you think we stand any chance of getting away from her?"

"Everything depends on the weather," was the reply. "In light winds, such as this, I have never seen anything to approach this cutter for speed; but should it come on to blow, the 'Vigilant' will run us under water."

This was a singularly agreeable piece of information to receive just at that moment, for the sky had gradually become flecked with fast-flying patches of scud, and a dark threatening bank of cloud was working up to windward. So far, however, the breeze remained light, and while we were gliding through the water at the rate of something like five knots, with scarcely a ripple under our bows to indicate the fact, the guarda-costa appeared to have little beyond bare steerage-way.

At first I was sanguine enough to hope that, seeing how we slipped away from her, the lateener would 'bout ship, and return to her moorings; but nothing of the kind: she held on like grim death, her skipper, no doubt, being seaman enough to read in the increasingly-threatening aspect of the heavens a promise that his turn should come by-and-by.

In the meantime the wind grew rapidly lighter until it became "breathless" calm; and there we both lay, heaving sluggishly on the long swell, our sails flapping idly from side to side, and our bows boxing the compa.s.s.

The cloud-bank meanwhile had been steadily rising, and at length it completely veiled the sky, obscuring first the stars, and finally the moon, and enveloping the whole face of nature in a mantle of inky blackness. So intense was this darkness that we lost sight of the guarda-costa, the land, and in fact everything save the two or three riding-lights which the more prudent of the skippers had chosen to display on board their craft in the roadstead.

A breathless hush prevailed, broken only by the loud creak of our boom and the flap of the sails. Giaccomo and his shipmate, or prisoner-- whichever the reader likes--were somewhere forward, probably sitting down; but it was impossible to see them in the impenetrable darkness.

I called Giaccomo aft, and his voice, when he spoke in reply, sounded strange, weird, and unnatural. I considered the aspect of the sky portentous in the extreme, but I wished to have his opinion, as that of a man accustomed to the weather of that region, and I asked him what he thought of it.

"We shall have it down upon us very heavily before long," he replied; "but I do not think it will last above three or four hours."

"Then we had better bear a hand and shorten sail," said I. "You take in the gaff-topsail, and bowse down a double reef in the mainsail, and I will in foresail and shift the jib. I suppose there is a storm-jib somewhere on board?"

"Down in the locker, forward," said he. "Be careful to close the hatch securely when you come up, signor, or we shall be swamped in less than ten minutes; she will bury herself in the breeze that we are going to have."

We all three worked like Trojans, and in a remarkably short s.p.a.ce of time had the "Mouette"--as I found the cutter was named--under double- reefed mainsail and storm-jib, the latter well in along the bowsprit, with topmast lowered as far as it would come, the fore-hatch and cabin skylight battened down, and everything made snug and ready for a regular stand-up fight with the elements.

While we were busy with these preparations, I admonished Giaccomo to keep a smart lookout, and I was careful also to do the same myself, in case the guarda-costa should endeavour to cut matters short by sending away a boat after us; but the man a.s.sured me that the skipper of the craft knew too well what he was about to risk the loss of a boat's crew by sending them away under such threatening conditions of weather.

Smart as we had been in making our preparations, we were only barely in time. We had just comfortably completed our work, and I had established myself at the tiller, with Giaccomo at the mainsheet, and Francois--as the French lad called himself--at the jib-sheet, when there came a terrific flash of lightning, green and baleful, illumining for a single instant the entire scene, and revealing our pertinacious friend, the "Vigilant," in her old berth astern, with her long tapering yards lowered to the deck, and two stumpy lugs and a pocket-handkerchief of a jib hoisted in their place. Then, as the opaque darkness closed down upon us again, there followed the long deep reverberating roll of the thunder. Another vivid flash quickly succeeded, the thunder this time being much louder and nearer; and then, after a pause of about a minute, there came a perfect _blast_ of lightning, so intensely bright that the whole atmosphere appeared for one brief moment to be literally on fire.

Simultaneously with the flash came the awful deafening crackling crash of the thunder, the terrific detonations of which completely stunned and unnerved me while they lasted, so overpowering were they in comparison with anything of the kind which I had before heard. We had scarcely time to recover our hearing before we became conscious of a hissing roaring sound in the atmosphere, momentarily increasing in intensity, and, looking to windward, there appeared in startling relief against the sable background a long line of luminous milky foam rushing down toward us from the horizon. In an incredibly short time the squall was upon us. On it came, like a howling fiend, over the tortured surface of the ocean, causing it to hiss and seethe like the contents of a boiling cauldron, and striking the cutter with such resistless fury that she went over helplessly before it, burying her lee-rail so deeply in the brine that her sails lay prostrate upon the surface of the water.

Each of us instinctively shouted to the others to "hold on," grasping at the same moment whatever came nearest. I managed somehow to clamber up the deck, as the cutter went over, and, pa.s.sing out over the low bulwarks, established myself on the upturned side of the little craft.

Giaccomo had done the same, while Francois was standing on the side of the cabin-companion, and clinging convulsively with both hands to the weather-rail.

Crawling up to the side of the Corsican, I placed my mouth to his ear and shouted,--

"Do you think you can cut away the mast?"

"No! no! no!" he earnestly returned. "See, signor, her head is paying- off, and she will come up again in a minute or two; she _cannot_ turn over altogether, her ballast is too well secured for that, and she will not fill even if she remains thus for half an hour yet; no water can get below except through the companion, and the doors fit so well that very little will get down even through them. See there, she is coming up again already."

It was even so. While the man was speaking, the cutter's bows had been rapidly paying-off, until we headed, as nearly as we could guess, straight for the sh.o.r.e; when, the pressure of the wind being no longer upon her broadside, the heavy ballast had gradually dragged the yacht into an upright position, and we had, somewhat precipitately, to scramble inboard again.

The moment that the yacht recovered herself, the wind of course caught her sails, and away we at once started to leeward with the speed of a hunted stag. This, however, would never do; the sh.o.r.e was straight ahead, and, at the rate at which we were travelling, twenty minutes would have seen us dashed into matchwood upon the rocks.

Very cautiously, therefore, we brought her upon a wind, and though, when we again got broadside-to, she threatened to go over once more with us, we managed by careful manipulation of the sheets to avoid such a catastrophe; and when we had got her once fairly jammed close upon a wind, some former experience of mine in cutter sailing enabled me to keep her right side uppermost. But it was perilous work for a good hour after the squall struck us. I have occasionally seen in my later days some bold and even reckless match-sailing, but I have never yet seen a craft so desperately overdriven as was, perforce, the little "Mouette"

on that memorable night. While the first strength of the gale lasted we were literally under water the whole time, the sea boiling and foaming in over our bows, and sweeping away aft and out over the taffrail in a continuous flood.

I believe we should have sailed faster, and we should a.s.suredly have made much better weather of it, had we been able to get a close reef down in the mainsail; but under the circ.u.mstances this was impossible, since, being so short-handed, it would have delayed us long enough to allow the "Vigilant" to get alongside us before we had got through with the work. There was, therefore, nothing for it, but to keep on as we were, the cutter heeling over to an angle of quite 500, so that we were really standing upon the inside of the lee bulwark, with our backs resting against the steeply-inclined deck, up above our knees in the sea, beneath which the little craft's lee-rail was deeply buried; while, owing to our great speed, we rushed _through_ instead of riding over the sea which was rapidly getting up, so that, when an unusually heavy "comber" met us, we were literally _buried_ for the moment, while it swept over us.

Luckily the first mad fury of the blast lasted only for two or three minutes, or our mast could never have resisted the tremendous strain upon it; as it was, stout though the spar--absurdly disproportionate to the size of the craft, I then considered it--it swayed and bent like a fishing-rod, causing the lee-rigging to blow out quite in bights, while that to windward was strained as taut as harp-strings, the resemblance to which was increased by the weird sound of the wind as it shrieked through it.

Scarcely had the tempest burst upon us before the veil of cloud which had obscured the heavens was rent to shreds by its fury, the sky was cleared as if by magic, the moon and stars reappeared--the former low down upon the horizon,--and we had an uninterrupted view of the wild scene around us.

We were heading straight out from the land, and sailing so close to the wind that we were taking the seas nearly stem-on; and I frankly confess that my heart was, metaphorically speaking, in my mouth for the greatest part of that night, while watching the little craft rush bodily into the steep slope of wave after wave, and felt her quiver like a frightened thing as they swept hissing and seething over our heads. My admiration for the skill of her builder was boundless; for, had I not witnessed the cutter's achievements, I could never have credited the power of wood and iron to successfully resist such a terrific strain and battering as she received.

When the first wild struggle for existence was over, and we had fairly settled down to our work in that mad life-or-death race, we had time to look round and see how our opponent had come out of the struggle. We had not far to look. There she was, about three miles to leeward, and well on our quarter, dashing gallantly on; now rushing upward upon the crest of a wave, amid a deluge of spray, and lifting her fore-foot out of the water as though about to leave the element altogether and take flight into the air, like a startled sea-bird; and anon plunging down into the trough until only a small portion of the heads of her sails was visible. She was evidently making much better weather of it than we were; but on the other hand half-an-hour's patient observation revealed to us the comforting fact that, notwithstanding her vaunted speed, we were both head-reaching and weathering upon her.

Satisfied at length that this was actually the case, I asked Giaccomo what he now thought of our chances of escape.

"We shall get away from her," he replied exultingly. "I have no longer any fear of _her_; what I now dread is the possibility of the cutter foundering from under us. There must be a considerable amount of water making its way into her interior, with the sea sweeping over us thus incessantly; indeed, I am convinced that we are sensibly deeper in the water than we were."

"Do you think you could manage to get the pump under way?" I asked.

"I would _try_," he replied; "but the well is on the larboard side, close by my feet, and deep under water."

"Then," said I, "we must endeavour to get her round upon the other tack.

We will watch for a 'smooth,' and directly it comes, you and Francois must round-in upon the mainsheet. Are you both ready?"

They replied in the affirmative, and after watching in vain for some five minutes, a terrific sea burst over us, burying the craft--as it seemed to me--nearly half-way up her mast, and beyond it the water was comparatively smooth.

"In with it!" I gasped, as we came out on the other side of this liquid hill. They gathered in the sheet as though their lives depended on it, and at the same moment I eased off the weather tiller-rope, and gave the craft her head. She surged up into the wind, her canvas flapping so furiously that it threatened to shake the mast out of her; her lee- gunwale appeared above the surface, and placing my feet against the tiller I pressed it gradually over, helping her round while stopping her way as little as possible; a sea rushed up and struck her on the port- bow, sending her head well off on the other tack, the jib-sheet was promptly hauled over, the mainsail filled, and as we hurriedly scrambled over to the other side of the deck and secured ourselves anew with lashings round our waists, the "Mouette" plunged forward on the larboard tack, looking well up to windward and heading about due north.