The Log of a Privateersman Page 9

  CHAPTER NINE.

  A NARROW ESCAPE, AND A FORTUNATE DISCOVERY.

  About midnight there were signs that the gale had pretty well blownitself out. There was a distinct, if not very strongly-marked decreasein the strength of the wind, and about an hour before dawn the veil ofimpenetrable vapour overhead broke away, showing, first of all, a smallpatch of clear sky, with half a dozen stars or so blinking out of it,and then other and larger patches, with more stars; until, by the timeof sunrise, the sky was clear, save for the thin detached tatters offleecy vapour that still swept scurrying away to the northward andeastward.

  It was my morning watch on deck; and with the first grey light of earlydawn I indulged in a thoroughly searching scrutiny of the fleet--or asmuch of it as still remained in sight,--on the look-out for thebrigantine; but I failed to discover any traces either of her or of thedisabled ship. This I considered not only surprising but exceedinglysuspicious; as the crew of the ship had contrived, during the previousday, to clear away the wreck of their top-hamper, and to get their craftonce more under command by setting their fore and main-topsails and amake-shift fore-staysail, under which the vessel appeared to be doingexceedingly well when the darkness of the preceding night had closeddown upon the convoy. Indeed, so well had she been doing that itoccurred to me as possible that she might, during the night, havemanaged to work herself into a tolerably weatherly position, relativelyto the rest of the fleet; and I therefore took the ship's telescope andwent up as far as the cross-trees, to see whether, from that elevation,I could discover anything of her to windward. But although I spent along half-hour aloft, carefully scrutinising every craft in sight, I wasquite unable to pick up either the ship or the brigantine. I was stillaloft when the skipper made his appearance on deck; and, as I had bythat time about concluded my search, upon seeing him looking up at me Igave one more comprehensive glance round the horizon, and then descendedto make my report.

  "It is exceedingly odd," remarked the skipper, when I had assured himthat both vessels had vanished. "What can have become of them? Thebrigantine can scarcely have taken the ship; for there has been, andstill is, far too much sea for boats to live in; and nobody but a madmanwould ever dream of running a ship aboard in such weather; it wouldsimply mean the destruction of both craft. I wonder, now, whether thatactually is the explanation of their disappearance? But, no; the manwho commanded that brigantine was a sailor, whatever flag he may havesailed under, and no sailor would even so much as think of attemptingsuch a foolhardy trick! What is your opinion, George?"

  "I quite agree with you, sir, as to the impossibility of boarding a shipin such weather as that of last night," I answered. "Yet the factremains that both craft have vanished. And I do not believe that theirdisappearance is the result of any accident such as, for instance, oneof them running foul of the other during the darkness. Depend upon it,sir, the brigantine is safe enough; and, wherever she may be at thismoment, the ship is not far from her."

  "Well, it is a very extraordinary circumstance," observed the skipper;"but I am inclined to believe, with you, that the disappearance of theone is intimately connected with the disappearance of the other. Thequestion now is, in which direction ought they to be looked for?"

  I considered the matter a little, and then said:

  "It appears to me, sir, that there is at least one direction in which--supposing our suspicions to be correct--they are quite certain not to befound, and that is to windward, in which direction the convoy will soonbe making sail. If the brigantine is an enemy, and has had any hand inthe disappearance of the ship, depend upon it she would not shape acourse that would involve her being overtaken in a few hours by theconvoy, hampered as she would be by the disabled ship. Nor do I thinkshe would be altogether likely to run away to leeward; because if theship happens to be missed by the men-o'-war--as she pretty certainlywill be before long,--that is precisely the direction in which she wouldnaturally be looked for. Here we are, all hove-to on the larboard tack,and my impression is that both vessels have remained on that tack; but,instead of being hove-to all night, like the rest of us, they haveratched away through the fleet, and have disappeared away there in thenorth-western board."

  "There is a good deal of sound reason and common sense in that argumentof yours, George, and, upon my word, I don't know that we could dobetter than act upon it," answered the skipper meditatively.

  "The sooner the better, sir, I think, if you will excuse me for sayingso," answered I. "The frigate yonder is signalling to the gun-brigs,who are all answering her; and that, to my mind, looks very much asthough the absence of the ship and the brigantine has just beendiscovered. If so, we shall probably have some of the men-o'-war comingthrough the fleet making inquiries. And although we have our papers toshow, I must confess I am not in love with the neighbourhood of thosegentry. They may take it into their heads to order us to keep companyuntil they can come aboard to examine our papers; and, should thathappen, we may say good-bye to twenty or thirty of our best men, to saynothing of our chance of finding the brigantine. See, sir, the brigsare shaking out a reef already."

  "Ay, so they are," assented the skipper. "You are right, George; it ishigh time for us to be off. You may make sail at once. Those brigssail fairly well in moderate weather, but they are very crank, and Ibelieve we can run away from them in such weather as this. Here is oneof them hereaway now, who looks as though she would like to have a wordwith us. Give the little hooker all that she will bear, George; and ifthat fellow wants to try his rate of sailing with us, he is heartilywelcome to do so."

  I looked in the direction indicated by the skipper, and saw one of thegun-brigs about a mile and a half astern, heading straight up for us,with the men upon her yards shaking out a reef from her topsails. Therewas no time to lose, so I sang out to the men; and, the tone of my voiceprobably indicating the urgency of the case, they sprang into therigging and came tumbling aft, and almost as soon as the brig had gother topsail-halliards sweated up, we were under double-reefed topsail,double-reefed mainsail, foresail, fore-staysail, and jib, leaving therest of the fleet as though they had been at anchor. The brig asternnow fired a gun as a signal for us to heave-to, but the shot never camenear us, and the only notice that we took of it was to hoist ourcolours. This caused the brig to give chase in earnest, shaking outanother reef in her topsails, and firing again. It was perfectly clearthat we were looked upon with strong suspicion, and I had no doubtwhatever that, if we were caught, we should be detained until theweather had moderated sufficiently for a boat to be sent aboard us. Afew minutes, however, proved sufficient to set our minds at rest withregard to the brig astern; she was being pressed altogether too much--for although the gale had certainly broken, it was still blowingheavily,--she was careened almost gunwale-to, and was sagging away toleeward bodily, as well as dropping astern of us. But unfortunatelythere were two other brigs, one about a mile to leeward and anotherabout the same distance to windward, which now, in obedience to signalsthrown out by the frigate, took up the chase, and matters began to lookexceedingly awkward for us. The brig to leeward I cared nothing about;I felt satisfied that we could outsail and out-weather her; but it wasthe fellow to windward that caused me to feel anxious, for he was edgingdown upon us, and in a comparatively short time would have us under hisguns. Luckily for us, there were a good many craft between us and thisvessel, and there was a whole crowd of them ahead, into the thick ofwhich we steered, in the hope that by threading our way among them weshould render it almost impossible for our pursuers to fire upon us forfear of hitting some of the other vessels.

  All three of the brigs in chase were now under double-reefed topsails,and the way in which they drove along through the mountainous sea, nowsoaring up to the crest of a wave in a smother of spray, showing thewhole of their fore-foot and some twenty feet of keel, and anon divingfuriously into a hollow, burying themselves to the windlass bitts, was asight worth seeing. The brig to windward had taken up the pursuit byedging br
oad away for us, but her people were not long in discoveringthat this would not do; the lively little _Dolphin_ was justifying hername by almost flying through the water, and we fore-reached out sorapidly that our friend quickly had to haul her wind again, and eventhen we were bringing her fast upon our weather quarter, although shewas steadily decreasing the distance between us and herself. At lengthshe tried a gun, and the shot struck the water some distance ahead andon our weather-bow. We were nearly, if not quite, within range. A fewminutes later she fired again, and this time the shot fell so close thatthe spray actually wetted our jib-boom. But we were now close to astraggling bunch of some thirty or forty vessels, and before the brigcould again fire we were among them, and for fully five minutes itbecame impossible for her to fire without running the risk of hittingone of them. This gave us a very handsome lift, of which we availedourselves to the utmost; and the brig to leeward being now well on ourlee quarter, Captain Winter thought he might venture to edge away apoint, which brought the brig to windward broad on our weather quarter.The critical moment was now fast approaching, for the last-mentionedvessel was now very nearly as close to us as she would be at all, and ifwe could manage to weather out the next twenty minutes without mishap wemight hope to make good our escape. We were soon clear of the clusterof shipping that had afforded us protection, and the moment that we wereso the brig to windward again opened fire, the conviction of her people,no doubt, being by this time that we were an enemy, despite the Britishensign streaming from our gaff-end. We heard the shot go humming overour mast-heads, and although it did no damage I could see that theskipper was beginning to feel very uneasy, as he kept glancing from thebrig to our own sails, as though debating within himself thedesirability of hazarding the attempt to give the schooner a little morecanvas. Presently we saw the brig luff momentarily into the wind, aline of flame and smoke burst from her lee broadside, and nine six-poundshot came skipping along the water toward us. The broadside wassplendidly aimed, but, luckily for us, the moment of firing was badlychosen, or the guns were too much depressed, for none of the shotreached us. Almost at the same moment the brig to leeward began firing,but her shot fell so far short that from that moment she gave us nofurther concern whatever. The luffing of the brig to windward gave us aslight advantage, as by so doing she fell astern several fathoms;moreover, she had by this time settled so far away on our quarter that afew minutes more would suffice to bring her almost directly into ourwake, and I felt that, once there, we should have very little more tofear from her. This impression was quickly confirmed, for after herlate experience she fired no more broadsides, the only guns that shecould now bring to bear being her bow-chasers, and although the nextthree or four shot came unpleasantly near to us, those that succeededfell short, and by the time that we were abreast of the most northerlystragglers of the convoy we were practically safe, provided that none ofour gear carried away. Of this, however, we had but little fear, as ourrigging was all new and of the very best. Fortunately for us, none ofthe big men-o'-war condescended to take part in the chase, or, from theweatherly position which they occupied, there is very little doubt thatthey would have cut us off. As it was, the brigs maintained the pursuitfor a distance of some sixteen miles altogether, when they were recalledby signal from the commodore.

  We were greatly elated at this escape, for although the utmost that wehad to fear was the loss, by impressment, of some of our men, themaintenance of our crew intact was an important matter with us, the moreso now that we were bound upon what might prove to be a lengthenedcruise, during the progress of which many vacancies might be expected tooccur,--either by the necessity to send away prize crews or otherwise,--which we should have little or no chance to fill up. But, over andabove this, our adventure with the gun-brigs had afforded us a brief butsufficient opportunity to thoroughly test the powers of the schoonerunder circumstances of about as adverse a character as could well beimagined, and the triumphant manner in which she had more than justifiedour most sanguine anticipations gave us unbounded confidence in her.

  By noon that day the wind had moderated sufficiently to permit of ourshaking out another reef, and when the sun went down out of a clear sky,shooting his last rays in a long trail of burning gold athwart thetumbling waste of still tumultuous waters, the _Dolphin_ was once moreunder all plain sail, and speeding to the westward in the direction thatwe surmised had been taken by the brigantine and the ship. During thenight the wind dropped still further, and the following morning foundus, with our sails barely filled, creeping lazily along over a long, lowswell that had already begun to wear that streaky, oily appearance whichsometimes heralds the approach of a stark calm. Our calculations hadled us to hope that with the appearance of daylight on this particularmorning we should sight the brigantine and her prize, as we had grown toconsider the disabled ship; but, greatly to our disappointment, nothingwas to be seen in any direction, even from the lofty elevation of ourroyal-yard. As the day wore on the wind died away altogether, and bynoon the schooner had lost steerage-way, her head boxing the compass asshe floated on the glass-smooth undulations that alone remained to tellof the elemental fury that had raged over the spot but a few hourspreviously.

  We remained thus becalmed for fifty-four hours, so utterly devoid ofmovement that the ash-dust and galley refuse hove overboard by the cookduring that time collected into an unsightly patch alongside, just abaftthe larboard fore-rigging, in the exact spot where they had been thrown.The weather was now excessively hot, and those of us who could swimtook advantage of so favourable an opportunity for bathing by spendingmost of our time off duty in the water alongside, until the appearanceof a shark's fin or two, at no great distance, warned us of the dangerof such a proceeding, and caused the skipper to issue an order that noman was to go overboard without especial permission.

  A few hours of such weather, after the gale, would have been anagreeable change, affording us, as it did, an excellent opportunity todry our drenched clothing; but it was spun out so long that we were allheartily glad when, toward sunset on the second day of the calm, adelicate line of blue, betokening the approach of a breeze, appearedalong the northern horizon; and by the time that the sun had sunk out ofsight, the first faint breathings reached us. We had by this timearrived at the conclusion that my surmise relative to the movements ofthe brigantine of suspicious character was erroneous, and that she hadsteered in some other direction. As soon, therefore, as our canvasfilled and the schooner gathered steerage-way, a course was shaped forthe south-west; the skipper and I having made up our minds that the WestIndian waters afforded the most promising field for the operations ofsuch enterprising privateersmen as ourselves.

  The breeze that had come to us proved to be but a very languid zephyrafter all, a scarcely perceptible breathing, just sufficient to give theschooner steerage-way, and to drift us along at the rate of a bare twoknots, to the south-west, through the soft, mysterious sheen of thestar-lit night. With the dawning of the new day matters improvedsomewhat, our speed rising to nearly four knots. When I went on deck atsix bells, to get a salt-water shower-bath in the head, I found theschooner gently stealing along over a smooth sea, softly wrinkled to amost delicate azure hue by the light touch of the faint breeze that cameto us, cool, sweet, and refreshing, out of the north. The sky was adeep, pure, cloudless blue overhead, merging, by a thousand subtlegradations, into a warm, pinky, primrose tint along the horizon; andaway to the north, low down in the sky, there floated a few indefinite,softly-luminous cloud shapes that gave us some reason to hope that wemight be favoured with a more robust breeze later on in the day,notwithstanding the oily-looking streaks and patches of calm thatappeared here and there upon the ocean's surface. The watch were busilyengaged in swabbing the deck subsequent to a vigorous treatment with theholystone; the freshly-polished brasswork and the guns flashed like goldin the brilliant morning sunlight; the white canvas swelled and sankgently, as the schooner curtsied upon the almost imperceptible heavingof the swell; everything looked
fresh and bright and cheerful, and athin wreath of smoke that floated lazily out of the galley funnel andaway over the lee cat-head to the melody of a rollicking sea-dittychanted by the cook, as he busied himself with the preparation ofbreakfast, imparted that sense of homeliness and light-hearted happinesswhich seemed to be all that was required to satisfactorily complete thepicture.

  Breakfast was over, and I had just set the watch to work upon certainjobs requiring the doing, when a boy, whom I had sent aloft to greasedown the topmasts, as a punishment for some trifling misdemeanour,reported two sail, close together, broad on our starboard beam, andsteering the same way as ourselves. In reply to an inquiry respectingtheir appearance, he furnished us with the further information that onewas a brigantine, but he could not quite make out the rig of the other,although he thought she was a ship. I immediately suspected, from thisreply, that we had accidentally tumbled upon the identical two craftthat we were most anxious to find; and, the better to satisfy myselfupon this important point, I took the ship's telescope and journeyed upto the royal-yard, from whence I should obtain the most satisfactoryview of them possible. They were at least twenty miles distant, andtherefore quite invisible from the deck, while even from the royal-yardtheir upper canvas only, and the heads of their lower sails, were to beseen; but I had not got them within the field of the telescope more thana minute when I became convinced that the lost was found--that they werethe two vessels for which we had been looking. The ship was under quitea respectable jury-rig, and was carrying topgallant-sails and jib, whilethe brigantine seemed to be under double-reefed canvas, doubtless tomoderate her speed to that of the disabled ship. They were closetogether, and steering to the south-west like ourselves. Havingthoroughly satisfied myself upon these points, I descended and made myreport to the skipper.

  The old fellow chuckled and rubbed his hands. "What a lucky thing itwas that the breeze did not freshen during the night," he remarked."Had it done so we should have passed those two craft without seeingthem; whereas now, if all goes well, we will have the pair of thembefore dark. And to think that we were grumbling about the light airsduring the night! Upon my word, I am beginning to believe that theparsons are only speaking the simple truth when they say that we cannever tell what is really best for us. However, this is not the time todiscuss matters of that sort. How do you say the vessels bear from us?"

  "Broad on the lee bow, sir, or as nearly as possible dead to leeward,"answered I.

  "Then, if we keep away a couple of points we shall just about hit themoff," remarked the skipper. He gave the necessary instructions to thehelmsman, and then, turning again to me, continued:

  "We may as well get this business over as soon as possible, George; soget the stunsails, big gaff-topsail, and main-topmast-staysail on her atonce, my lad, and give the little hooker a chance to go through thewater."

  These additions to our canvas were soon made, and then the watchreturned to the work upon which they had been previously engaged, as wedid not expect to overtake the object of our pursuit for several hours.

  It was just noon, and we were still engaged upon our observations of thesun for the determination of the latitude, when the captain made out,through the telescope of his sextant, the mast-heads of the brigantinejust peeping above the line of the southern horizon; and while we werein the cabin getting our dinner, Comben, who had charge of the deck,reported, through the open skylight, that the brigantine had apparentlyjust sighted us, for she had hauled her wind and was making sail.

  "All right," remarked the skipper; "so much the better. That just suitsme, for we shall get to fisticuffs all the sooner, and get the wholebusiness comfortably over by dark. Let her go along as she is, MrComben."

  We finished our dinner comfortably, and then went on deck, to find thatthe brigantine had reached out well across our fore-foot; and shortlyafterwards she tacked, heading well up to meet us. She was then aboutnine miles off, and some four points on our starboard bow; the shipbeing, perhaps, twelve miles distant, bearing a point on our port bow.The wind had freshened a trifle during the forenoon, and was now blowinga pretty little breeze that sent us along at about six knots; and if itwould but freshen a trifle more it would become a perfect working breezefor a fight between two such craft as the brigantine and ourselves. Asit was, I was by no means dissatisfied, for there was just wind enoughto ensure the proper working of the schooner, while the water was smoothenough to admit of our laying our adversary aboard without injury toeither vessel. The men were given plenty of time to finish their dinnerin peace and comfort; a tot of grog was served out to them, and then allhands cleared the decks for action; the galley fire was extinguished,the magazine opened, powder and shot passed on deck, cutlasses andpistols served out, and the latter loaded; and then the crew went toquarters. The brigantine was by this time within three miles of us; weallowed her to close to within two miles, and then shortened sail tomainsail, foresail, topsail, topgallant-sail, and jibs, hoisted ourcolours, and fired a gun.