'Twas little sleep I got that night, my body smarting with the ill
usage I had suffered, and my mind in a ferment of rage and dismay.
This was the third and the worst mischance that had befallen me
since I left Shrewsbury, and no one would blame me overmuch,
perhaps, had I given way to utter despair. Old Woodrow had told me
stories about such tricks of kidnapping, but, just as when we hear
a parson denouncing sin we are apt to apply it to our neighbor and
not ourselves, so I had never dreamed that I myself might be the
victim of such an outrage. And remembering what Woodrow had said, I
broke out into a sweat of apprehension, for I knew that I could not
have been impressed as a mariner to serve aboard a privateer, as
was often done; only tried mariners were seized with that intent,
and certainly no one would wish to teach a raw landsman his duties
on a vessel engaged in such a perilous and desperate business.
I could only conclude, then, that the design in kidnapping me was
to ship me to the American or West Indian plantations, whither
every year hundreds of poor wretches were sent to a dismal slavery.
Woodrow had pointed out to me one day in the street a high
magistrate of the city, who had made great wealth in the sugar
trade, and did not disdain to add to it by selling flesh and blood.
My imagination racked with this fear, I lay sleepless, save for
brief intervals of restless dozing. Soon after dawn I heard
movements about the ship, and by and by some of the sailors came
and looked at me, making all manner of jests in language fouler
than I had ever heard. The features of one of them seemed familiar
to me, though at first I could not recall place or time when I had
seen him before. But after a while, as I watched him, I recognized
him in spite of some change in his garb: it was the lodger whom
Mistress Perry had wished to place in my room.
My kidnapping was then, I thought, a carefully arranged plan, and I
remembered that before leaving the house I had told Mistress Perry
in the man's hearing where I was going, and that I might return
somewhat late. He had doubtless lodged there to spy on me, and I
was sore tempted to speak to the fellow and ask him how much he had
got for the dirty job.
But an hour or two afterwards I had fuller enlightenment as to my
plight. The master of the vessel came aboard; he had spent the
night ashore; and his foot no sooner touched the deck than he
stepped to where I lay, and ordered one of the men to loose my
bonds and stand me on my feet. And as I rose, staggering, I saw
behind him the grinning faces of Cyrus Vetch and Dick Cludde. The
meaning of it all flashed upon me; this was their revenge; and the
knowledge heated me to such a fury that I leapt forward and, before
I could be stopped, dealt Vetch a buffet that sent him spinning
against the foremast. Cludde, ever chicken-hearted, turned pale,
expecting a like handling, but he was spared, for the master cried
to his men to seize me, and I was in a minute again pinioned and
laid where I had been before.
"Hot as pepper," says the master, with a grin to Vetch.
"Yes," I cried, with an impetuous rage I could not check, "and
'twill be hot for you some day. You've no right to bring me here
against my will, and I demand to be set free."
"Too-rol-loo-rol!" hummed the master, smirking again. "What a
bantam cock have ye brought me here, Mr. Cludde?"
"He was a desperate fellow at school, Captain," said Cludde. "Why,
when he was only eleven he pretty nearly murdered my friend Vetch
here."
"Split my snatch block, you don't say so! We shall have to watch
the weather with him aboard."
"D'you hear?" I cried, incensed beyond bearing. "Let me free, or I
promise you you shall suffer for it, and those curs too."
"Didst ever see such a brimstone galley! I'll soon bring you to
your bearings," and with that he gave me a cuff on the head which
made me dizzy.
He left me then with the others, and soon afterwards I saw Cludde
go over the side, taking farewell of the captain, and, to my
surprise, of Vetch also. Still more astonished was I when, the
order being given to throw off, the vessel dropped down with the
tide, having Vetch still aboard. We made the mouth of the river,
and stood out to sea; it was clear that my old enemy and I were to
be shipmates, though I could not guess the purpose of his crossing
the ocean.
During the ship's slow beating out I had had leisure to look about
me, and I now knew that I was aboard the Dolphin, the privateer
whose fitting out I had watched from the quayside. Despite my sorry
situation I felt a stirring of interest and excitement; a privateer
would scarce put to sea for nothing, and the thought that ere many
days were passed I might be in the midst of a sea fight helped to
drive my grievances from my mind. Withal I was puzzled: if slavery
was not to be my lot, what had my enemies gained?
But I was soon, in sooth, in no state either to feed my imagination
or to nurse my wrongs. The unaccustomed motion of the vessel
produced on me the effect which but few escape; and we were no
sooner fairly out in the Channel than I turned sick, and suffered
the more severely, as I was told afterwards, because I had had no
food for upwards of fifteen hours. For a whole day I lay in
helpless misery: but then Captain Cawson (so he was named) himself
came to me, hauled me to my feet, and with an oath bade me go and
scrub the floor of the cook's galley. At the time I thought him a
monster of brutality, driving me to my death; but I soon learned
that nothing prolongs sea sickness, or indeed any sickness, so much
as brooding on it, and the activity thus forced upon me had some
part, I doubt not, in hastening my recovery.
From that time I was the ship's drudge. At everybody's beck and
call, I was employed from morning till night in all kinds of menial
offices. It was a hard life, and the treatment meted out to me was
rough; but having got the better of my first rage and indignation,
I resolved to make the best of my situation and to show no
sullenness; besides I honestly wished to learn all that I could of
a sailor's duty, and felt some little amusement in thinking that,
if my enemies had sought this way of crushing me, they had very
much mistaken their man. My activity and strength of limb stood me
in good stead and won me a certain rough respect from officers and
men, together with the real goodwill of a few of the better
disposed among them.
After a day or two one old salt, named John Dilly, took me in a
manner under his wing, and I made shift with his guidance to bear
my part in shortening and letting out sail. Fortunately the weather
was mild, and the early days of my apprenticeship were not so
terrible as they might have been had the vessel encountered the
storms that are commonly experienced in those seas, and especially
in the Bay of Biscay, in which we beat about for nigh a week in the
hope of sighting a Frenchman.
From John Dilly I learned that Vetch's position on board was that
of purser, he having been introduced to the captain by Dick Cludde.
Vetch attempted no active measures of hostility against me; indeed,
he kept religiously out of my way, fearing maybe that I might seize
an opportunity to settle accounts with him. Sometimes I saw him
grin with malicious pleasure when he caught sight of me tarring
ropes or engaged in some other arduous or unsavory task; but I
never gratified him by giving sign of resentment or humiliation.
I had to take my watch with the rest of the crew. One morning, some
ten days after leaving Bristowe, the captain came on deck at two
bells and ordered me to the mizzen cross-trees to keep a sharp
lookout, at the same time sending Dilly to the fore cross-trees. It
was his practice, I had learned, to give a money bounty to the
first man who sighted an enemy if the discovery resulted in a
capture, and I was eager to win the prize, not more for its own
sake than as a means of standing well with the captain.
The sun rose over the hills of France as I sat at my post. For a
time I was entranced with the beauty of the sight, watching the
changing hues of the sky, as pink turned to gold, and gold merged
into the heavenly blue. But the morning air was chilly, and what
with the cold and my cramped position I was longing for release
when my eye was suddenly caught by what resembled the wing of a
bird on the horizon about west-southwest. Was it the sail of a
ship, I wondered, roused to excitement, or merely a cloud? Had old
Dilly observed it?
I durst not cry out lest I were mistaken; but, straining my eyes,
in the course of a few minutes I made out the speck to be beyond
doubt the royals of a distant ship.
"Sail ho!" I cried with all my might.
"Where away?" shouts the captain, and when I answered "About
west-sou'-west," he went to the companion way, reached for his
perspective glass, and, mounting the rigging, climbed as high as
the royal yard.
He took a long look through the glass, and then, shutting it up
with a snap, he cries:
"You're right, my lad, smite my taffrail if you're not. She's a
Frenchman, sure enough, and the bounty's yours if it comes to a
battering and grappling. I'm a man of my word, I am."
The stranger was yet a good way off, and the captain, instead of
altering the brig's course and standing in pursuit, shouted to the
men to brace the yards round, and, the wind being due north, headed
straight for Bordeaux, whither the vessel was to all appearance
making. At the same time he hoisted French colors at the mizzen,
and then ordered one of the anchors to be dropped over the stern
and about fifty fathom of cable to be paid out, the meaning of
which I did not understand till Dilly explained that 'twas to check
the way on the brig and allow the stranger to overhaul us. Then he
cried to us to lie flat on the deck and keep out of sight, and he
sent one of the best hands to the wheel, wearing a red cap, which
was, Dilly told me, to make him look like a Frencher.
There was only a light six-knot breeze, and Dilly said that the
anchor dragging astern took quite two knots off our speed, so that
in the course of an hour the stranger came clearly into view. She
was a big barque, deep in the water, and the men chuckled as they
peeped at her, for 'twas clear she was full of cargo. Every sail
was set, alow and aloft, and she came on steadily at a good rate,
not altering her course a point, from which 'twas plain she had as
yet no suspicions of us.
I noticed that a buoy had been fixed to the end of the cable
inboard.
"What's that for?" I asked Dilly, who lay at my side.
"'Tis ready to be flung over," he replied, "so as to mark the
position of our cable when it is sent by the board. We'll come back
for it anon."
When the vessel was about a mile distant, our captain gave the
order to fling the cable overboard, then shouted:
"Hard up, wear ship."
We sprang to the braces, the ship spun round, and there we were on
the starboard tack heading straight for the stranger. 'Twas clear
then that she thought something was amiss, for she tried to put
about and run for it; but being greatly hampered by her stern sails
and the press of canvas she was carrying, by the time she had come
round we had gained a good quarter mile upon her. The wind had
freshened, and in some ten minutes our captain gave the order to
haul the tarpaulin off Long Tom, the biggest of eight guns we
carried, and give the Frenchman a pill. The gun was already loaded,
and Bill Garland, the best shot aboard, of whose skill I had heard
not a little from his messmates, laid it carefully and took aim,
and then for a minute I could see nothing for the cloud of smoke. I
sprang up in my excitement; 'twas the first shot I had ever seen
fired, and the roar of it made me tingle and throb. But old Dilly
pulled me down.
"Not so fast, long shanks," he said. "Our turn's a-coming."
"Did he hit her?" I asked, dropping down beside him.
"Clean through the mizzen topsail," he replied, "but done no more
harm than blowing your nose."
The gun was reloaded, and Bill was about to fire again when the
captain sang out to him to wait a little, for we were sailing two
feet to the Frenchman's one, and drawing rapidly within point-blank
range.
"He's loaded with chain shot this time," said Dilly, "and that's a
terrible creature for clearing a deck or cutting up rigging. If
Bill have got his eye we'll see summat according."
The gun spoke, and when the smoke had cleared we saw that the shot
had cut through the Frenchman's mizzen and main weather rigging,
bringing down the top masts with all their hamper of sails. Even to
my inexperienced eye it was clear that the barque was crippled and
lay at our mercy. She still kept her flag flying, however, and as
we drew nearer we could see a throng of soldiers upon her decks,
she being without doubt a transport returning from the French
possessions in the West Indies. She fired a shot or two at us, but
they fell short, her ordnance plainly being no match for ours, so
we had nothing to do but heave to and rake her at our pleasure.
After a couple of broadsides that made havoc on her decks, she
suddenly struck her flag, and of our crew I was perhaps the only
one who did not cheer, for it seemed to me that none but a craven
would have yielded so easily, and I was longing for the excitement
of boarding. We ran up to windward of her, and Captain Cawson,
keeping the port broadside trained on her in case of treachery,
sent an armed boat's crew in charge of the first mate to take
possession of her.
I was not among those who were told off for this duty, but the
fever of adventure had got such a hold upon me that I was hungry to
take a share in what was toward. So I contrived to slip into the
boat at the last moment, at some peril of a ducking, and mounted
the Frenchman's deck with the rest. Then I wished that I had not
been so impetuous, for the sight that met my eye was more terrible
than anything I had ever imagined, and explained the surrender.
Scores of wounded and dying men were strewn over the decks; their
groans and piteous looks turned my heart sick. But such sights were
no new thing to the rest of the crew. They set to work with amazing
coolness to clear the decks, and get the vessel into trim, our
captain having ordered the mate to rig jury masts, under which he
hoped to sail the prize to England.
This seemed to me, I own, an enterprise of much danger, for we were
near the French coast, and might easily fall in with a French
frigate, or even a squadron of the enemy's vessels. But the prize
was exceedingly valuable, and Captain Cawson was no more unwilling
than any other English seaman to run a certain risk. Accordingly
the soldiers and passengers on board the Frenchman were sent below
and battened under hatches, and the crew was made to assist our men
in cutting away the rigging and splicing and setting up the weather
shrouds. The lighter sails were stripped off the foremast, the mate
thinking to bring her into port under mizzen and main sail,
together with all the fore and aft canvas that could be safely set.
'Twas the work of several hours to get things shipshape, the
Dolphin meanwhile lying by to give us countenance and protection.
When all was trim and taut we set a course for our own shores,
following the Dolphin about three cables' lengths astern.
'Twas drawing towards sunset when she signalled to us that a sail
was in sight. This news caused much commotion among us, still more
when our own lookout cried that the vessel bearing towards us under
press of sail out of the west was beyond doubt a frigate, and in
all likelihood a Frenchman. I knew our case would be parlous if
indeed it was so, for neither the privateer nor the merchant barque
we had captured was armed in any wise to match a line-of-battle
ship. Moreover 'twas unlikely that in our partly crippled condition
we could out-sail the vessel: and when the mate, taking a look at
the stranger through his perspective glass, declared that she was
certainly French, our only hope was that darkness might shroud us
before she came within striking distance--a slender chance at the
best, for, though 'twas drawing towards dusk, the sky was
wonderfully clear.
We held on our course, there being nothing else for us to do. The
frigate loomed ever larger, and my heartbeats quickened as I
wondered what the event would be. I did not dream that we should
strike our flag as the Frenchman had done, and thought that we,
having two vessels against one, would at least make a fight of it.
But I was struck with mingled indignation and dismay when I saw the
Dolphin crowd on all sail and bear away northwards, leaving us to
our fate. I thought it a scurvy action on the part of Captain
Cawson, and Dilly could not persuade me that he could have done us
no good by remaining.
But the mate was not a whit discomposed. He swore a little, as did
the men, yet without any heat: indeed they joked among themselves
about the prison fare they would soon be starving on; and when a
shot from the frigate fell across our bows, the mate merely spat
out the quid he was chewing, and ordered the flag to be hauled
down. Ten minutes after, the frigate was on our weather quarter,
and dropping a boat, sent a crew aboard.
I was bitterly chagrined at this reversal of our fortunes, and when
the Frenchmen who had been our prisoners were released, I went very
sullenly with the rest into the boat that conveyed us to the
frigate. We were clapped under hatches, and confined in the hold, a
noisome close place, lit by a single oil lamp that stunk horribly.
"Smite me if it bean't Doggy Trang!" said the mate when the squat
towsy-headed seaman who had conducted us below had left us. "I seed
him at Plymouth a year or two ago."
I thought he was referring to the seaman, but it turned out that he
meant the captain of the vessel, a young Frenchman named
Duguay-Trouin, who was known to our men as a daring and courageous
corsair. Two years before this, they told me, when commanding the
royal frigate La Diligente of thirty-six guns, he had run among a
squadron of six English vessels in a fog, and after a stout
resistance was forced to yield, not before a ball from the Monk had
laid him low. He was carried prisoner to Plymouth, whence he had
cleverly escaped one night by scaling a wall and putting off in a
little boat.
My companions soon accommodated themselves to their surroundings
and fell asleep; but I was in too great a ferment to take matters
so equably. I had no love for the buccaneers who had kidnapped me
at Bristowe, to be sure: but my English pride was hurt at our
capture by the French, and I quailed at the prospect of a long
imprisonment in France. Surely, thought I, I must have been born
under an unlucky star, for misfortune has dogged me ever since I
left my native town.
The old seaman brought us some food by and by. He knew a little
English, and in answer to a question from the mate explained that
his captain was now hotly chasing the vessel which had run away,
and if he caught it, the dogs of English would be sorry they ever
showed their noses off the French coast. The captain being
Duguay-Trouin, we knew that if it came to an action his ship would
be well handled, and we had noticed that she carried far heavier
metal than our own vessel. But the Dolphin had got a good start of
her, and we did not suppose it possible that she could be
overtaken.
I had never spent a more uncomfortable night than those hours in
the hold. I could not sleep; the light went out; and in the
darkness rats scurried hither and thither, and I had to keep my
legs and arms in motion to ward them off. There was no glimmer of
light from the outside, and it was only when the seaman again
appeared with food that we knew morning had dawned. He told us with
a grin that our vessel was fast being overhauled, and assured us
that she had certainly made her last privateering voyage under the
English flag. The mate cursed him vigorously, rather from habit
than from ill temper, and the seaman shut us in, leaving us once
more in total darkness.
My fellow prisoners talked among themselves, using language that
made me shudder. I rested my head on my hands, stopping my ears and
giving myself up to a dismal reverie. From this I was suddenly
startled by a dull report overhead, and a slight trembling of the
vessel.
"Ads my life!" cried the mate: "they've caught her."
"Maybe 'tis another vessel," said one of the men.
"Shut your mouth!" was the reply, "and list for an answer."
In a few moments there came a muffled report through the timbers.
"There's to be a fight, sure enough," said the mate, "though what
the captain can be a-thinkin' of beats me altogether."
"I would do the same," I said, "and so would any Englishman worth
his salt."
"Then you'd be as big a fool as he is," was the blunt retort.
It was a tantalizing position to be in. Here we were, boxed up in
the darkness, condemned to listen to a duel of firing at long
range, without any means of knowing what its effects were, hoping
that our countrymen would win, yet aware that if the vessels came
to close quarters a shot might plunge among us and send us all into
eternity. We could tell that the vessel was racing through the
water at a great rate, but, to judge by the reports that reached
our ears, the distance between the combatants was not diminishing.
The alternation of shots continued for some time; then suddenly the
ship swung round with a violence that threw us all in a heap, and
caused me to bump my head hard against the wall.
"Helm's hard up," said the mate, "she's going to try a broadside."
And in a few seconds there was a thunderous roar above, and a shock
that made the vessel stagger. There was no reply save a single
shock, from which I judged that the Dolphin was holding her course;
and it was clear that the broadside had done little or no damage,
for the ship again swung round, and the duel of single shots began
again. But we could tell that the vessels were now nearer to each
other, and after a time we heard a series of dull reports, followed
by a thud or two and the sound of rending and tearing woodwork
above and around. 'Twas a broadside from the Dolphin. But before we
had time to rejoice at the success of our comrades, or to hope that
their shots had brought down enough of the French ship's spars to
disable her, the vessel shook again under a terrific discharge of
her ordnance, and we, knowing how vastly superior was her armament
to that of our own ship, were in no little anxiety as to the effect
of this second broadside at shorter range. Another and another
broadside followed from each combatant: and then came to our ears
from the deck above a great yell of triumph. My heart sank within
me; the mate let out a volley of oaths; 'twas impossible to mistake
the meaning of that shrill cry.
The cannonading ceased. For a time that seemed endless there was
silence, save for a shout now and then, and a thud that might be
caused by the work of replacing or repairing an injured spar.
Suddenly the hatch above was lifted, raised, and when our eyes
became accustomed to the light we saw men swarming down the ladder
into the hold. A French seaman among them relit the lamp, and we
recognized the faces of some of our comrades on the Dolphin. Among
the first I saw old Dilly, and behind him came Cyrus Vetch, his
countenance black with rage. As soon as he was among us he launched
out into bitter complaints at being herded with common seamen--he
who by right and courtesy ought to have been classed with the
officers and allowed the hospitality of a cabin.
"'Tis infamous," he cried; "'tis a scandal to treat a gentleman
with such indignity. Duguay-Trouin was not so served when he was
brought prisoner to Plymouth."
"Stow your jab!" cried the mate angrily. "Ain't we good enough for
you? What's a land lubber like you doing here at all? We ain't
aboard the Dolphin now, I'll let ye know, and here we're all equal,
and smite my eye, if you complains of your company, and gives
honest seamen any more of your paw-wawing, 'ware timbers is what I
say to you, my gemman, or I'll rake you fore and aft."
From which it may be concluded that Vetch was by no means a
favorite with the crew of the Dolphin.