The dim evening gave place to a dark night. The _Tonans_ had for some
two or three hours been stealing along very slowly not far from land,
and that something important was on the way was evident from the
captain's movements, and the sharp look-out that was being kept up, and
still more so from the fact that no lights were shown.
The gunboat's cutter had been swung out ready for lowering down at a
moment's notice, the armed crew stood waiting, and one man was in the
stern-sheets whose duty it was to look after the lantern, which was kept
carefully shaded.
Fitz, who was the readiest of the ready, had long before noted with
intense interest the fact that they showed no lights, and his interest
increased when the lieutenant became so far communicative that he stood
gazing out through the darkness side by side with his junior, and said
softly--
"I am afraid we shall miss her, my lad. She'll steal by us in the
darkness, and it will all prove to be labour in vain."
Fitz waited to hear more, but no more came, for the lieutenant moved off
to join the captain.
"I wish he wouldn't be so jolly mysterious," said the midshipman to
himself. "I am an officer too, and he might have said a little more."
But it was all waiting, and no farther intercourse till close upon eight
bells, when Fitz, feeling regularly tired out, said to himself--
"Bother! I wish I hadn't asked leave to go. I should have been
comfortably asleep by now."
He had hardly thought this when there was a quick movement behind him,
and simultaneously he caught sight of a dim light off the starboard-bow.
An order was given in a low tone, and with a silence and method learned
on board a man-of-war, the boat's crew, followed by their officers, took
their places in the cutter, and in obedience to another command the boat
was lowered down, kissed the water, the hooks were withdrawn, she was
pushed off, the oars fell on either side, and away they glided over the
dancing waters in the direction of the distant light.
"Now we are off, Fitz," said the lieutenant eagerly, speaking almost in
a whisper, but without the slightest necessity, for the light was far
away.
"Yes, sir, now we are off," replied the boy, almost resentfully, and his
tone suggested that he would have liked to say, Why can't you tell me
where we are going? Possibly the officer took it in this light, for he
continued--
"This ought to be a bit of excitement for you, Burnett. We are after a
schooner bound for somewhere south, laden with contraband of war."
"War, sir?" whispered the lad excitedly.
"Well, some petty Central American squabble; and the captain has had
instructions that this schooner is going to steal out of port to-night.
Some one informed. We got the information yesterday."
"Contraband, sir?"
"Yes; guns and ammunition which ought not to be allowed to be shipped
from an English port against a friendly state.--Give way, my men!"
The rowers responded by making their stout ashen blades bend, and the
cutter went forward in jerks through the rather choppy sea.
"Then we shall take the schooner, sir?"
"Yes, my lad, if we can."
"Then that means prize-money."
"Why, Burnett, are you as avaricious as that?"
"No, sir; no, sir; I was thinking about the men."
"Oh, that's right. But don't count your chickens before they are
hatched."
"No, sir."
"We mayn't be able to board that vessel, and if we do, possibly it isn't
the one we want. It's fifty to one it isn't. Or it may be anything--
some trading brig or another going down south."
"Of course, sir. There are so many that pass."
"At the same time it may be the one we want."
"Yes, sir."
"And then we shall be in luck."
"Yes, sir."
"They must surrender to our armed boat."
Fitz Burnett had had little experience of the sea, but none as connected
with an excursion in a boat on a dark night, to board a vessel whose
sailing light could be seen in the distance.
They had not gone far before the lieutenant tabooed all talking.
"Still as you can, my lads," he said. "Sound travels far over the sea,
and lights are very deceptive."
The midshipman had already been thinking the same thing. He had often
read of Will-o'-the-Wisps, but never seen one, and this light seemed to
answer the description exactly, for there it was, dimly-seen for a few
moments, then brightening, and slowly going up and down. But the great
peculiarity was that now it seemed quite close at hand, now far distant,
and for the life of him he could not make out that they got any nearer.
He wanted to draw his companion's attention to that fact, but on turning
sharply to the lieutenant as if to speak, he was met by a low "Hist!"
which silenced him directly, while the men rowed steadily on for quite a
quarter of an hour longer, when all at once the lieutenant uttered in an
angry whisper--
"What are you doing, you clumsy scoundrel?"
For there was a sudden movement behind where they sat in the
stern-sheets, as if the man in charge of the lantern had slipped, with
the result that a dull gleam of light shone out for a few moments,
before its guardian scuffled the piece of sail-cloth by which it had
been covered, back into its place, and all was dark once more.
"Why, what were you about?" whispered the lieutenant angrily.
"Beg pardon, sir. Slipped, sir."
"Slipped! I believe you were asleep."
The man was silent.
"You were nodding off, weren't you?"
"Don't think I was, sir," was the reply.
But the man's officer was right, and the rest of the crew knew it, being
ready to a man, as they afterwards did, to declare that "that there Bill
Smith would caulk," as they termed taking a surreptitious nap, "even if
the gunboat were going down."
"Put your backs into it, my lads," whispered the lieutenant. "Now then,
with a will; but quiet, quiet!"
As he spoke the speed of the boat increased and its progress made it
more unsteady, necessitating his steadying himself by gripping Fitz by
the collar as he stood up, shading his eyes and keeping a sharp look-out
ahead.
A low hissing sound suggestive of his vexation now escaped his lips, for
to his rage and disgust he saw plainly enough that their light must have
been noticed.
Fitz Burnett had come to the same conclusion, for though he strained his
eyes with all his power, the Will-o'-the-Wisp-like light that they were
chasing had disappeared.
"Gone!" thought the boy, whose heart was now beating heavily. "They
must have seen our light and taken alarm. That's bad. No," he added to
himself, "it's good--capital, for it must mean that that was the light
of the vessel we were after. Any honest skipper wouldn't have taken the
alarm."
"Use your eyes, Burnett, my lad," whispered the lieutenant, bending
down. "We must have been close up to her when that idiot gave the
alarm. See anything?"
"No, sir."
"Oh, tut, tut, tut, tut!" came in a low muttering tone.
"Look, boy, look; we must see her somehow. How are we to go back and
face the captain if we fail like this?"
The boy made no reply, but strained his eyes again, to see darkness
everywhere that appeared to be growing darker moment by moment, except
in one spot, evidently where the land lay, and there a dull yellowish
light glared out that seemed to keep on winking at them derisively, now
fairly bright, now disappearing all at once, as the lantern revolved.
"Hold hard!" whispered the lieutenant, and the men lay on their oars,
with the boat gradually slackening its speed till it rose and fell,
rocking slowly on the choppy sea, and the eye-like lantern gave another
derisive wink twice, and then seemed to shut itself up tight.
"It's of no use to pull, Burnett," whispered the lieutenant. "We may be
going right away. See anything, my lads?"
"No, sir," came in a low murmur, and the culprit who had gone to sleep
sat and shivered as he thought of the "wigging," as he termed it, that
would be his when he went back on board the gunboat; and as the boat
rocked now in regular motion the darkness seemed to grow more profound,
while the silence to the midshipman seemed to be awful.
He was miserable too with disappointment, for he felt so mixed up with
the expedition that it seemed to him as if he was in fault, and that
when they returned he would have to share in the blame that Captain
Glossop would, as he termed it, "lay on thick."
"Oh, Mr Bill Smith," he said to himself, "just wait till we get back!"
And then a reaction took place.
"What's the good?" he thought. "Poor fellow! He'll get it hot enough
without me saying a word. But how could a fellow go to sleep at a time
like this?"
"It's all up, Burnett," came in a whisper, close to his ear. "The
milk's spilt, and it's no use crying over it, but after all these
preparations who could have expected such a mishap as that?--What's the
matter with you?" he added sharply. "You'll have me overboard."
For the midshipman had suddenly sprung up from where he sat, nearly
overbalancing his superior officer as he gripped him tightly by the
chest with the right hand, and without replying stood rigidly pointing
over the side with his left, his arm stretched right across the
lieutenant's breast.
"You don't mean--you can see--Bravo, boy!--Pull, my lads, for all you
know."
As he spoke he dropped back into his seat, tugging hard with his right
hand at one of the rudder-lines, with the result that as the cutter
glided once more rapidly over the little waves she made a sharp curve to
starboard, and then as the line was once more loosened, glided on
straight ahead for something dim and strange that stood out before them
like a blur.
As the men bent to their stout ash-blades, pulling with all their might,
a great thrill seemed to run through the cutter, which, as it were,
participated in the excitement of the crew, boat and men being for the
time as it were one, while the dark blur now rapidly assumed form,
growing moment by moment more distinct, till the occupants of the
stern-sheets gradually made out the form of a two-masted vessel gliding
along under a good deal of sail.
She had so much way on, as the cutter was coming up at right angles that
instead of beating fast, Fitz Burnett's heart now continued its
pulsations in jerks in his excitement lest the schooner should glide by
them and leave them behind.
It was a near thing, but the lieutenant had taken his measures
correctly. He was standing up once again grasping the rudder-lines till
almost the last moment, before dropping them and giving two orders, to
the coxswain to hook on, and to the crew to follow--unnecessary orders,
for every man was on the _qui vive_, knew his task, and meant to do it
in the shortest possible time.
And now a peculiar sense of unreality attacked the young midshipman, for
in the darkness everything seemed so dream-like and unnatural. It was
as if they were rowing with all their might towards a phantom ship, a
misty something dimly-seen in the darkness, a ship-like shape that might
at any moment die right away; for all on board was black, and the
silence profound. There was nothing alive, as it were, but the schooner
itself, careening gently over in their direction, and passing silently
before their bows.
One moment this feeling strengthened as Fitz Burnett dimly made out the
coxswain standing ready in the bows prepared to seize hold with the
boat-hook he wielded, while the men left their oars to swing, while they
played another part.
"The boat-hook will go through it," thought the lad, as, following the
lieutenant's example, he stood ready to spring up the side. The next
moment all was real, for the cutter in response to a jerk as the
coxswain hooked on, grated against the side and changed its course,
gliding along with the schooner, while, closely following, their
officers, who sprang on board, the little crew of stout man-of-war's men
sprang up and literally tumbled over the low bulwarks on to the vessel's
deck.
For a short period during which you might have counted six, there was
nothing heard but the rustle of the men's movements and the _pad, pad,
pad_ of their bare feet upon the deck.
"Where's the--"
What the lieutenant would have said in continuation was not heard.
Surprised by the utter silence on board, he had shared with Fitz the
feeling that they must have boarded some derelict whose crew, perhaps in
great peril, had deserted their vessel and sought safety in the boats.
But the next moment there was a sudden rush that took every one by
surprise, for not a word was uttered by their assailants, the thud,
thud, thud of heavy blows, the breathing hard of men scuffling, followed
by splash after splash, and then one of the schooner's masts seemed to
give way and fall heavily upon Fitz Burnett's head, turning the
dimly-seen deck and the struggling men into something so black that he
saw no more.