THE SILENT GUNNER.
Of course, Terrence Malone had played a practical joke on the English
lieutenant, and while the latter was passing the night on the gloomiest
island of all the Maryland coast, the former was sweetly dreaming of
dear old Ireland, in the most comfortable bed the tavern afforded. Next
morning the captain of the _Xenophon_ sent ashore for Lieutenant Matson
to come aboard, as they were about to hoist anchor. Terrence, Fernando
and Sukey were just going aboard the schooner as the messenger came.
Fernando had passed the most miserable night of his existence, and now,
pale and melancholy, went aboard the schooner utterly unconscious of the
fact that some one was watching him through a glass from the big house
on the hill.
Terrence was as jolly as usual and had almost forgotten the lieutenant.
Just as the schooner was about to sail, ensign Post came aboard and
asked for Mr. Malone. Terrence was sitting aft the main cabin smoking a
cigar, when the ensign, approaching, asked:
"Where is Lieutenant Matson? I was told he went shooting with you last
evening."
"Sure he did. You will find him on Duck Island enjoying the sport I've
no doubt. Faith, I had almost forgotten to tell ye to touch at the
island and take him off, as ye sailed out of the harbor."
The ensign looked puzzled at this and said:
"This is strange,--this is certainly very extraordinary! Would he stay
on the island all night?"
Terrence assured him that the lieutenant was a great sport and that the
best shooting was just before day. The Englishman returned to his boat
and was rowed to the man-of-war to report, while the schooner weighed
anchor and sailed out of the harbor. The _Xenophon_ followed two hours
later, having first sent a boat to Duck Island for the lieutenant, who
swore to shoot the Irishman at sight. There was no time for him to call
on Morgianna and explain why he had not brought her the ducks, for soon
after his arrival the ship departed for Halifax, where the commander had
to give an account of his conduct at Baltimore.
Meanwhile, the schooner on which the three students had taken passage
stood out to sea and started down the coast.
A strong breeze blowing from off land swept her out of sight of the
coast, when the wind suddenly shifted, until the skipper declared they
had it right in their teeth, and, despite all the skill of master and
crew, the vessel continued to drift farther out to sea, while Sukey once
more bewailed his fate at risking his life on the water.
"Don't count me in this game again," he groaned. "If I live to get on
shore, I'll never risk myself on water broader than the Ohio."
With such headwinds, the schooner could not possibly reach Baltimore
that night. All night long she struggled first on one tack and then on
the other, and at dawn only the blue mist, seen like a fog in the West,
marked the line of the Maryland coast.
"Don't be discouraged, lads," said the skipper cheerfully. "Come down to
breakfast, and afore night I'll have ye snug in port."
They went to breakfast, and when they returned found the master and
three seamen in the forecastle holding a very earnest conversation. The
fourth sailor was at the wheel. Fernando, glancing off to their larboard
saw a large ship, flying English colors, bearing down upon them, and he
had no doubt that this vessel was the subject of discussion.
She signalled to the schooner to heave to, and as they were within range
of her powerful guns, the skipper was forced to obey. This vessel was
the English frigate _Macedonian_ cruising along the American coast, and
at this time short of hands. In a few moments, the frigate came near and
hove to, while a boat with a dozen marines and an officer came alongside
the schooner.
"What is your business?" asked the skipper.
"We are looking for deserters and Englishmen."
"Well, here are my crew," said the skipper pointing to his sailors.
"Every one I will swear is American born!"
"But who are these young men?"
"Three passengers I am taking to Baltimore."
The three students began to entertain some grave apprehensions. Terrence
for once was quiet. His dialect he knew would betray him, and when he
was asked where he lived and where he was from, he tried hard to conceal
his brogue; but it was in vain.
Sukey came forward and tried to explain matters, but only made them
worse. The result was that all three were in a short hour transported to
the _Macedonian_ in irons. Protest was useless; the _Macedonian_ was
short of hands and they were forced to go.
They were not even permitted to write letters home. However, the skipper
had their names, and the whole affair was printed in the _Baltimore
Sun_, and copies were sent to the parents of the young men.
Captain Snipes of the English frigate was one of those barbarous,
tyrannical sea captains, more brute than human, and, in an age when the
strict discipline of the navy permitted tyranny to exist, he became
a monster.
The three recruits were added to his muster-roll and gradually initiated
into the mysteries of sailor's life on a war vessel.
Poor Sukey for several days was fearfully seasick; but he recovered and
was assigned to his mess. Fortunately they were all three assigned to
the same mess. The common seamen of the _Macedonian_ were divided into
thirty-seven messes, put down on the purser's book as Mess No. 1, Mess
No. 2, Mess No. 3. The members of each mess clubbed their rations of
provisions, and breakfasted, dined and supped together at allotted
intervals between the guns on the main deck.
They found that living on board the _Macedonian_ was like living in a
market, where one dresses on the door-step and sleeps in the cellar.
They could have no privacy, hardly a moment seclusion. In fact, it was
almost a physical impossibility ever to be alone. The three impressed
Americans dined at a vast _table d'hôte_, slept in commons and made
their toilet when and where they could. Their clothes were stowed in a
large canvas bag, painted black, which they could get out of the "rack"
only once in twenty-four hours, and then during a time of utmost
confusion, among three hundred and fifty other sailors, each diving into
his bag, in the midst of the twilight of the berth-deck.
Terrence, in order to obviate in a measure this inconvenience, suggested
that they divide their wardrobes between their hammocks and their bags,
stowing their few frocks and trowsers in the former, so that they could
change at night when the hammocks were piped down. They knew not whither
they were bound, and they cared little about the object of the voyage.
"How are we to get out of this any way?" asked Sukey one day, when the
three were together for a moment.
"Lave it all to me!" said Terrence.
"I am perfectly willing to leave it all to you, Terrence. Do just as you
will, so you get me on shore."
Before they had been a month on the ship, they chased a French
merchantman for twenty-four hours, and at times were near enough to fire
a few shots with their long bow-chaser; but a fresh breeze sprang up,
quickly increased to a gale, and the Frenchman escaped.
This was the nearest approach to a naval engagement they experienced
during their stay on the war frigate. They cruised along the coast of
Ireland and Scotland, went to Spain, entered the waters of the
Mediterranean for a few weeks, and then returned to the Atlantic,
sailing for the West Indies.
Not only were the officers of the _Macedonian_ brutal; but the crew was
made up of a motley class of human beings of every class of viciousness
and brutality.
"Now boys, if ye want to kape out of trouble," said Terrence, "do'nt ye
get into any fights with thim divils, or ye'll be brought up to the
quarter-deck and flogged."
His advice was appreciated, and both Fernando and Sukey did their best
to avoid trouble with any of their quarrelsome neighbors. They submitted
to insults innumerable; but at last Sukey was one morning assailed by a
brutal sailor whom he knocked down. Two other sailors were guilty of a
similar offence, and all four were put under arrest. Fernando was
shocked and alarmed for his friend, and hastened to ascertain the facts
concerning the charge.
"I couldn't help it," declared Sukey, whom he found in irons. "Plague
take him! he hit me twice before I knocked him down. I didn't want to be
in the game."
The culprits could expect nothing but a flogging at the captain's
pleasure. Toward evening of the next day, they were startled by the
dread summons of the boatswain and his mates at the principal
hatchway,--a summons that sent a shudder through every manly heart in
the frigate:
"_All hands witness punishment, ahoy_!"
The hoarseness of the cry, its unrelenting prolongation, it being caught
up at different points and sent to the lowest depths of the ship,
produced a most dismal effect upon every heart not calloused by long
familiarity with it. However much Fernando desired to absent himself
from the scene that ensued, behold it he must; or, at least, stand near
it he must; for the regulations compelled the attendance of the entire
ship's company, from the captain himself to the smallest boy who
struck the bell.
At the summons, the crew crowded round the mainmast. Many, eager to
obtain a good place, got on the booms to overlook the scene. Some were
laughing and chatting, others canvassing the case of the culprits. Some
maintaining sad, anxious countenance, or carrying a suppressed
indignation in their eyes. A few purposely kept behind, to avoid looking
on. In short, among three or four hundred men, there was every possible
shade of character. All the officers, midshipmen included, stood
together in a group on the starboard side of the mainmast. The first
lieutenant was a little in advance, and the surgeon, whose special duty
it was to be present at such times, stood close at his side. Presently
the captain came forward from his cabin and took his place in the centre
of the group, with a small paper in his hand. That paper was the daily
report of offenses, regularly laid upon his table every morning
or evening.
"Master-at-arms, bring up the prisoners," he said. A few moments
elapsed, during which the captain, now clothed in his most dreadful
attributes, fixed his eyes severely upon the crew, when suddenly a lane
formed through the crowd of seamen, and the prisoners advanced--the
master-at-arms, rattan in hand, on one side, and an armed marine on the
other,--and took up their stations at the mast.
"You, John, you, Richard, (Richard was Sukey) you Mark, you Antone,"
said the captain, "were yesterday found fighting on the gun-deck. Have
you any thing to say?"
Mark and Antone, two steady, middle-aged men, who had been admired for
their sobriety, replied that they did not strike the first blow; they
had submitted to much before they yielded to their passions; but as they
acknowledged that they had at last defended themselves their excuse was
overruled. John--a brutal bully, who in fact was the real author of the
disturbance was about entering into a long harangue, when the captain
cut him short, and made him confess, irrespective of circumstances, that
he had been in the fray. Poor Sukey, the youngest and handsomest of the
four, was pale and tremulous. He had already won the good will and
esteem of many in the ship. That morning Fernando and Terrence had gone
to his bag, taken out his best clothes and, obtaining the permission of
the marine sentry at the "brig," had handed them to him, to be put on
before he was summoned to the mast. This was done to propitiate Captain
Snipes, who liked to see a tidy sailor; but it was all in vain. To all
the young American's supplications, Captain Snipes turned a deaf ear.
Sukey declared he had been struck twice before he had returned a blow.
"No matter," cried the captain, angrily, "you struck at last, instead of
reporting the case to an officer. I allow no man to fight on this ship
but myself. I do the fighting. Now, men," he added fixing his dark stern
eye on them, "you all admit the charge; you know the penalty. Strip!
Quartermaster, are the gratings rigged?"
The gratings were square frames of barred woodwork, sometimes placed
over the hatches. One of these squares was now laid on the deck, close
to the ship's bulwarks, and while the remaining preparations were being
made, the master-at-arms assisted the prisoners to remove their jackets
and shirts. This done, their shirts were loosely thrown over their
shoulders as a partial protection from the keen breeze, until their turn
should come.
At a sign from the captain, John, with a shameless leer, stepped forward
and stood passively on the grating, while the bareheaded old
quarter-master, with his gray hair streaming in the wind, bound his feet
to the cross-bars and, stretching out his arms over his head, secured
them to the hammock netting above. He then retreated a little space,
standing silent. Meanwhile, the boatswain stood solemnly on the other
side with a green bag in his hand. From this he took four instruments of
punishment and gave one to each of his mates; for a fresh "cat," applied
by a fresh hand, was the ceremonious privilege accorded to every
man-of-war culprit. Through all that terrible scene, Fernando Stevens
stood transfixed with horror, indignation and a thousand bitter,
indescribable feelings. At another sign from the captain, the
master-at-arms, stepping up, removed the shirt from the prisoner. At
this juncture, a wave broke against the ship's side and dashed the spray
over the man's exposed back; but, though the air was piercing cold, and
the water drenched him, John stood still without a shudder.
Captain Snipes lifted his finger, and the first boatswain's-mate
advanced, combing out the nine tails of his "cat" with his fingers, and
then, sweeping them round his neck, brought them with the whole force of
his body upon the mark. Again, and again, and again; at every blow,
higher and higher and higher rose the long purple bars on the prisoner's
back; but he only bowed his head and stood still. A whispered murmur of
applause at their shipmate's nerve went round among the sailors. One
dozen blows were administered on his bare back, and then he was taken
down and went among his messmates, swearing:
"It's nothing, after you get used to it."
Antone, who was a Portuguese, was next, and he howled and swore at every
blow, though he had never been known to blaspheme before. Mark, the
third, was in the first stage of consumption and coughed and cringed
during the flogging. At about the sixth blow he bowed his head and
cried: "Oh! Jesus Christ!" but whether it was in blasphemy or
supplication no one could determine. He was taken with a fever a few
days later and died before the cruise was over, as much perhaps of
mortification as from the inroads of the disease.
The, fourth was poor Sukey. When told to advance, he made one more
appeal to the captain, avowing that he was an American. The captain,
with an oath, said that was the more reason for flogging him. He
appealed until the marine guard was ordered to prod him with his
bayonet. They had to actually drag Sukey to the gratings. Sukey's cheek,
which was usually pale, was now whiter than a ghost. As he was being
secured to the gratings, and the shudderings and creepings of his
dazzling white back were revealed, he turned his tear-stained face to
the captain and implored him to spare him the disgrace, which he felt
far more keenly than the pain.
"I would not forgive God Almighty!" cried the brutal captain. The fourth
boatswain's mate, with a fresh cat-o-nine-tails swung it about his head
and brought the terrible scourge hissing and crackling on the young and
tender back. Fernando turned his face away and wept.
"_My God! oh! my God_!" shouted Sukey, and he writhed and leaped, until
he displaced the gratings, scattering the nine-tails of the scourge all
over his person. At the next blow, he howled, leaped and raged in
unendurable agony.
"What the d---l are you stopping for?" cried the captain as the
boatswain's-mate halted. "Lay on!" and the whole dozen were applied,
though poor Sukey fainted at the tenth stroke.
Reader, this was on an English war vessel,--the vessel of a nation
professing a high state of civilization. We blush to say it, it was no
better on an American man-of-war, if nautical writers of high authority
are to be believed, and, even to-day, the brute often holds a commission
in the American army and navy. Although flogging is of the past,
punishment equally severe is inflicted. The necessities of discipline
are taken advantage of by men without hearts. An American naval officer
in Washington City told the author that it was a common thing for
officers on an American man-of-war to swing the hammock of the sailor or
middy whom they disliked, where he would have all the damp and cold,
ending in consumption and death. If this be true, it is far more brutal
than flogging. Congressional investigations are usually farces.
Congressmen place their friends in the army and navy, and their
investigations usually result in the triumph of their friends.
For several days, Sukey was too ill to leave his hammock. "I don't want
to get well," the poor boy said. "I want to die. I never want to see
home or mother again after that."
"Faith, me lad, live but to kill the d---d captain," suggested Terrence.
"I would live a thousand years to do that."
There was a negro named Job on the vessel, who was a cook. He early
formed a liking for the three. He stole the choicest dainties from the
officers' table for the sick youth.
"I ain't no Britisher," he declared. "Dar ain't no Angler Saxon blood
in dese veins, honey, an' I thank de good Lawd for dat. I know what it
am to be flogged. Golly, dey flog dis chile twice already. Nex' time, I
spect dat sumfin' am a-gwine to happen."
"When and where were you impressed?" Fernando asked.
"I war wid Cap'n Parson on de _Dover_, den de _Sea Wing_ came, an' de
leftenant swear dis chile am a Britisher, and he tuk me away. Den me an'
Massa St. Mark, de gunner, were transferred to de _Macedonian_."
Sukey was sullen and melancholy. A few days after he was on duty, he
breathed a threat against Captain Snipes. A tall, fine-looking sailor,
who was known as the chief gunner, said:
"Young man, keep your thoughts to yourself. For heaven's sake, don't let
the officers hear them!"
They were now in the vicinity of the West Indies and touched at
Barbadoes. While lying here, Fernando witnessed another act of British
cruelty. Tom Boseley, an American who had been impressed into the
service of Great Britain deserted, but was pursued and brought back. He
was flogged and, on being released struck the captain, knocking him
down. For this act, he was tried by a "drumhead court martial" and
sentenced to die. Tom had a wife and children in New York, but was not
permitted to write to them. Only one prayer was granted, and that was
that he might be shot instead of hung, and thrown into the sea.
Fernando, almost at the risk of his own life, visited Boseley the night
before his execution. He seemed indifferent to his fate, declaring it
preferable to service on an English war ship. "I would rather die a free
man, than live a slave," he declared. Fernando asked if he would not
rather live for his family.
"Oh! Stevens, say nothing about my family to-night!"
He then requested him to take possession of some letters he would try to
write and, if possible, send them. Fernando said he would do so, and he
then asked him to remain with him through the night. This Fernando
declared was impossible. The young American was greatly weighed down by
the terrible mental strain the whole affair had produced, and he had
double duty to screen the unfortunate Sukey.
"Won't you be with me when it is done?" Boseley asked. Money would not
have tempted him to witness that sight; but he could not refuse the
dying request. He visited him early next morning and found him dressed
in the best clothes his poor wardrobe could afford, a white shirt and
black cravat. He was a fine-looking man in features as well as stature.
As Fernando gazed on him he thought, "_Dressed for eternity_!"
The doomed man gave him three letters, which Fernando secreted about his
person and subsequently sent to their destination. Twelve marines were
drawn as executioners. Four muskets were loaded with balls and eight
with blank cartridges. Then the party went ashore. Boseley bore up well
until the woods were reached, where he found an open grave. According to
promise, Fernando went with him. Captain Snipes accompanied the sergeant
of the marines to see that the prisoner was properly executed. He still
stung under the blow he had received, and Boseley was slain more to
gratify the vengeance of the captain than for any violated law. A number
of Boseley's shipmates were permitted to come and witness the
terrible scene.
The captain said to Boseley:
"What is your distance?"
"Twelve steps."
"Step off your ground," added the captain.
"I cannot do it; you do it for me."
"I will do it with you."
The prisoner's hands were tied behind his back, and the captain, taking
his arm, walked him off twelve steps, as coolly as if they were only
pacing the quarter-deck. The captain then took a blanket, spread it on
the ground and told Boseley to kneel on it, and he did so, facing his
executioners. The ship's chaplain came and offered a prayer, after which
the sergeant asked Boseley if he wished to have his eyes bandaged.
"No; I am not afraid to face my executioners," he answered. It was an
intensely solemn occasion, and among all those hardy, rough-mannered
sailors, there was not one, unless it was Captain Snipes, who was not
deeply affected. The captain's face was flushed, and his breath was
strong with brandy, and he seemed but little moved.
"Go ahead, and have this done with," he said to the officer in charge of
the affair.
"Are you quite ready now?" asked the sergeant.
"Yes," was the answer in a faltering tone.
"Make ready!" and the twelve glittering muskets were leveled at this
sacrifice to the wrath of Captain Snipes.
"Take aim!" and the gunners steadied themselves for the fatal word, to
send a fellow being to eternity.
"Fire!" and instantly flashed a volley, reverberating a wild and
unearthly death knell among the crags that looked down upon that awful
scene. In the clear morning air, the smoke of the guns curled up lazily
and hung like a funeral pall over the mangled, bleeding form. Four
bullets had pierced his body. He fell on his face and lay motionless for
a few seconds. Then he began to slowly raise his head. Fernando came
near and stood in front of him. Ten thousand years could not efface that
scene from his mind. He continued to raise his head and body without a
struggle. He looked the captain in the eye, and his mouth was in motion
as though he were trying to speak,--to utter some dying accusation.
Never did human eye behold a scene so pitiful as this dying man gazing
on his destroyer, gasping to implore or to denounce him. In an instant a
dimness came over his eyes, and he fell dead.
"Oh, Heaven!" groaned Fernando, and he hurried away to the ship. For
weeks, he saw that awful face every time he closed his eyes to sleep.
Two years on board the British frigate had made Fernando, Sukey and
Terrence tolerably fair sailors. Their hearts were never in the work,
and they often dreamed of escape from this life of slavery. Fernando, by
judicious attention to business, had never yet won the positive
displeasure of the officers. One day the boatswain's mates repeated the
commands at the hatchways:
"All hands tack ship, ahoy!"
It was just eight bells, noon, and, springing from his jacket, which he
had spread between the guns for a bed on the main deck, Fernando ran up
the ladders, and, as usual, seized hold of the main-brace which fifty
hands were streaming along forward. When "maintopsail haul!" was given
through the trumpet, he pulled at this brace with such heartiness and
good will, that he flattered himself he would gain the approval of the
grim captain himself; but something happened to be in the way aloft,
when the yards swung round, and a little confusion ensued. With anger on
his brow. Captain Snipes came forward to see what occasioned it. No one
to let go the weather-lift of the main-yard. The rope was cast off,
however, by a hand, and, the yards, unobstructed, came round. When the
last rope was coiled away, the captain asked the first lieutenant who it
might be that was stationed at the weather (then the starboard)
main-lift. With a vexed expression of countenance, the first lieutenant
sent a midshipman for the station bill, when, upon glancing it over, the
name of Fernando Stevens was found set down at the post in question. At
the time, Fernando was on the gundeck below, and did not know of these
proceedings; but a moment after, he heard the boatswain's-mates bawling
his name at all the hatchways and along all three decks. It was the
first time he had ever heard it sent through the furthest recesses of
the ship, and, well knowing what this generally betokened to other
seamen, his heart jumped to his throat, and he hurriedly asked Brown,
the boatswain's-mate at the fore-hatchway, what was wanted of him.
"Captain wants ye at the mast," he answered. "Going to flog ye, I
fancy."
"What for?"
"My eyes! you've been chalking your face, hain't ye?"
"What am I wanted for?" he repeated.
But at that instant, his name was thundered forth by the other
boatswain's-mates, and Brown hurried him away, hinting that he would
soon find out what the captain wanted. Fernando swallowed down his heart
as he touched the spardeck, for a single instant balanced himself on his
best centre, and then, wholly ignorant of what was going to be alleged
against him, advanced to the dread tribunal of the frigate. The sight of
the quarter-master rigging his gratings, the boatswain with his
detestable green bag of scourges, the master-at-arms standing ready to
assist some one to take off his shirt was not calculated to allay his
apprehensions. With another desperate effort to swallow his whole soul,
he found himself face to face with Captain Snipes, whose flushed face
showed his ill humor. At his side was the first lieutenant, who, as
Fernando came aft, eyed him with some degree of conscientious vexation
at being compelled to make him the scapegoat of his own negligence.
"Why were you not at your station, sir?" asked the captain.
"What station do you mean, sir?" Fernando asked, forgetting the
accustomed formality of touching his hat, by way of salute, while
speaking with so punctilious an officer as Captain Snipes. This little
fact did not escape the captain's attention.
"Your pretension to ignorance will not help you sir," the Captain
retorted.
The first lieutenant now produced the station bill, and read the name of
Fernando Stevens in connection with the starboard main-lift.
"Captain Snipes," said Fernando in a voice firm and terrible in its
sincerity, "it is the first time I knew I was assigned to that post."
"How is this, Mr. Bacon?" the captain asked turning to the first
lieutenant with a fault-finding expression.
"It is impossible, sir, that this man should not know his station,"
replied, the lieutenant.
"Captain Snipes, I will swear, I never knew it before this moment,"
answered Fernando.
With an oath, the captain cried:
"Do you contradict my officer? I'll flog you, by--!"
Fernando had been on board the frigate for more than two years and
remained unscourged. Though a slave in fact, he lived in hope of soon
being a free man. Now, after making himself a hermit in some things,
after enduring countless torments and insults without resentment, in
order to avoid the possibility of the scourge, here it was hanging over
him for a thing utterly unforeseen,--a crime of which he was wholly
innocent; but all that was naught. He saw that his case was hopeless;
his solemn disclaimer was thrown in his teeth, and the boatswain's-mate
stood curling his fingers through the "cat." There are times when wild
thoughts enter a man's heart, when he seems almost irresponsible for his
act and his deed. The captain stood on the weather side of the deck.
Sideways on an unoccupied line with him, was the opening of the
lee-gangway, where the side-ladders were suspended in port. Nothing but
a slight bit of sinnate-stuff served to rail in this opening, which was
cut down to a level with the captain's feet, showing the far sea beyond.
Fernando stood a little to windward of him, and, though Captain Snipes
was a large, powerful man, it was quite certain that a sudden rush
against him, along the slanting deck, would infallibly pitch him
headforemost into the ocean, though he who rushed must needs go over
with him. The young American's blood seemed clotting in his veins; he
felt icy cold at the tips of his fingers, and a dimness was before his
eyes; but through that dimness, the boatswain's-mate, scourge in hand,
loomed like a giant, and Captain Snipes and the blue sea, seen through
the opening at the gangway, showed with an awful vividness. He was never
able to analyze his heart, though it then stood still within him; but
the thing that swayed him to his purpose was not altogether the thought
that Captain Snipes was about to degrade him, and that he had taken an
oath within his soul that he should not. No; he felt his manhood so
bottomless within him, that no word, no blow, no scourge of Captain
Snipe's could cut deep enough for that. He but clung to an instinct in
him,--the instinct diffused through all animated nature, the same that
prompts the worm to turn under the heel. Locking souls with him, he
meant to drag Captain Snipes from this earthly tribunal of his, to that
of Jehovah, and let Him decide between them. No other way could he
escape the scourge.
"To the gratings, sir!" cried Captain Snipes. "Do you hear?"
Fernando's eye measured the distance between him and the sea, and he was
gathering himself together for the fatal spring--
"Captain Snipes," said a voice advancing from the crowd. Every eye
turned to see who spoke. It was the remarkably handsome and gentlemanly
gunner, Hugh St. Mark, who was scarcely ever known to break the silence,
and all were amazed that he should do so now. "I know that man," said
St. Mark, touching his cap, and speaking in a mild, firm, but extremely
deferential manner, "and I know that he would not be found absent from
his station, if he knew where it was."
This speech was almost unprecedented. Never before had a marine dared to
speak to the captain of a frigate in behalf of a seaman at the mast; but
there was something unostentatiously forcible and commanding in St.
Mark's manner. He had once saved the captain's life, when a French
boarder was about to slay him. Then the corporal, emboldened by St.
Mark's audacity, put in a good word. Terrence, who had been promoted to
a small office, poured forth a torrent of eloquence, and, almost before
he knew it, Fernando was free. As he was going to his quarters, his
brain in a whirl, he heard Job the cook say:
"He ain't no Britisher! Dar ain't no more Angler Saxon blood in his
veins dan in dis chile!"
An hour later, when he stood near a gun carriage, still dizzy from his
narrow escape from the double crime of murder and suicide, St. Mark
passed Fernando. He grasped the hand of the silent gunner, held it a
moment in his own and whispered: "Thank you!"