He wind came away about an hour and a half before sunrise, a gentle
breeze out from the north-east, coming down to us first of all in the
form of a few wandering cats'-paws, that just wrinkled the oil-smooth
surface of the ocean and were gone again, and finally settling into a
true breeze that fanned us along at a speed of some four knots, the
schooner proving to be a fairly speedy little vessel.
Long ere this, however, I had carefully thought out a line of action for
myself, in order that when the wind came I might be prepared for it. It
will be remembered that before parting company with the launch I had
been furnished by the master with a table showing the relative speeds of
the various boats, and from that moment I had, with the assistance of
the table, carefully calculated the supposed position of each boat at
noon; so that I now knew, to within a few miles, where any particular
boat ought to be looked for, upon the assumption that all had gone well
with them. And somehow I thought it had; I was very strongly impressed
with the belief that the gale which we had encountered had not extended
far enough to the south-east to reach the launch and the rest of the
squadron. Flowers it _might_ have overtaken, but my observations upon
the bearings of the centre of the storm and its direction led me to
entertain a very strong hope that the rest of the boats had escaped.
This being so, I determined to act upon the assumption that they had
done so, and to proceed in search of them in the direction where they
ought, upon that assumption, to be found. Of course, with their
different rates of sailing, they would now be strung out in a fairly
long line; and the question that exercised me most strongly was whether
I should first seek the leading boat, and, having found her, dodge about
in waiting for the others, or whether I should first seek the dinghy,
and, having found her, run down the wind in the track of the others.
The direction from which the wind might happen to spring up would
necessarily influence my decision to a great extent; but when it came
away out from the north-east, and I discovered that the schooner could
fetch, upon an easy bowline, the spot where the sternmost boat might be
expected to be found, I hesitated no longer, but at once made up my mind
to first look for the dinghy.
As the morning wore on the breeze freshened somewhat, and the schooner's
speed increased to fully seven knots. I employed the early part of the
forenoon in satisfying myself that the prisoners were properly
secured,--taking the precaution to have them all put in irons, as, in
the exhausted condition of my own crew, I could not afford to run any
unnecessary risks,--and as soon as I had eased my mind of that anxiety,
I personally investigated the condition of the schooner's storeroom. To
my great joy I discovered that we possessed an ample supply of
provisions and water, together with a liberal quantity of wines,
spirits, and other luxuries--enough of everything, in fact, to maintain
the whole of the survivors of the _Althea_ upon full allowance for at
least a month. The schooner, moreover,--she proved to be the _Susanne_,
privateer, of Saint Malo,--was nearly new, a stout, substantially built
little craft of one hundred and thirty-four tons register, as tight as a
bottle, well found, and armed with six long six-pounders in her
batteries, with a long nine-pounder mounted on a pivot on her
forecastle, and her magazine nearly full.
Nothing of any importance happened, either on that day or the next,
except that the sky gradually became overspread with those peculiar
patches of fleece-like clouds called "trade-clouds"--showing that at
length we had hit off the north-east trade winds that seemed to have
been evading us for so long. According to my reckoning, and upon the
assumption that the wind would now hold fairly steady, we ought to hit
off the track of the boats about six bells in the morning watch, on the
third morning after the capture of the schooner, which would allow us
some eleven hours of daylight in which to prosecute our search; and, to
give ourselves the best possible chance of finding the objects of our
quest, I took care, on the preceding midnight, to haul the schooner as
close to the wind as she would lie, so that there should be no
possibility of hitting upon their track to leeward instead of to
windward of them, and so running _away_ from instead of _after_ them.
And at six bells on that morning I was called, in accordance with
previous instructions, in order that I might work up the reckoning to
the very last moment, and so make certain of getting as accurately as
possible upon the track. My calculations now showed that it would be
nearly eight bells instead of six before we should reach the imaginary
line for which we were making; and at a quarter to eight--having
previously sent a hand aloft to take a careful look round--I gave the
order to up helm and bear away upon a west-south-west course, and to
pack the studding-sails upon the little hooker. The men--thanks to good
feeding and all the rest I could give them consistent with the
maintenance of proper discipline--had by this time completely recovered
from the effects of our boat voyage, and were one and all as keen as
needles on the lookout for the boats from the moment that we squared
away, the watch, all but the helmsman, taking to the rigging--without
any orders from me--immediately that they had finished breakfast, and
disposing themselves upon the royal and topgallant yards in their
eagerness to catch the earliest possible glimpse of their shipmates. I
calculated that at about five bells in the forenoon watch we ought to
overtake the dinghy,--the slowest boat in the fleet,--and as that moment
drew near our anxiety reached a most painful pitch, the men on the yards
straining their eyes to the utmost as they peered intently into the
distance from right ahead to broad on either beam, carefully and slowly
scanning the horizon for the little blot of gleaming canvas that should
proclaim the success of our quest. But the fateful moment came and
went, leaving the horizon a blank. Noon arrived, and I secured an
excellent observation for my latitude, by means of which I was enabled
to check my previous dead reckoning, which tallied to within less than a
mile of what it ought to be; and still there was no sign of the missing
boat, although my calculations showed that we had overrun by some
fifteen miles the spot where we expected to find her. I hailed the
yards, inquiring whether there was any possibility of our having run
past the dinghy without observing her; but the men assured me that they
had maintained so bright a lookout that had she been anywhere within the
boundaries of our horizon they would assuredly have seen her.
This was rather disconcerting, yet I felt that I had no real cause for
disappointment; the boats might have met with rather fresher winds than
I had estimated for, in which case the likelihood was that they were
still many miles ahead of us. My calculations had been based upon the
supposition that they had been evenly maintaining the same rate of speed
from the moment when we parted with them, and I knew that this was in
the last degree improbable. Yet it was the only basis I had upon which
to make my calculations; for it was impossible for me to judge by the
weather which we had ourselves experienced. Of one thing I felt
tolerably well convinced, which was that, keeping so much farther to the
southward than we had done in the gig, the other boats would not have
met with the calms that had so seriously delayed us; and that
consequently--unless they too had been caught in the hurricane that had
so nearly proved our destruction--they must be somewhere directly ahead
of us as we were then steering. There was nothing for it, therefore,
but to keep all on as we were until we found them.
In this condition of anxiety and suspense we continued to run away to
the west-south-west until sunset, without sighting anything; and then,
fearful of running past one or more of the objects of our quest during
the night-time without seeing them, I hove the schooner to under
foresail and jib, with the topsail aback, so that we might remain as
nearly as possible where we were--excepting for our lee drift--all
through the night. I also caused three lanterns to be hoisted, one over
the other, from our maintopmast stay, as a fairly conspicuous signal,
pretty certain to attract attention in the event of either of the boats
coming within sight of us during the hours of darkness, and of course
gave the strictest injunctions for the maintenance of a bright lookout
all through the night.
The night passed uneventfully, and at daybreak, after having first gone
aloft and personally but unavailingly examined the horizon and the
entire visible expanse of the ocean through the ship's telescope,--an
excellent instrument, by the way,--we made sail again upon the schooner,
and resumed our search.
Shortly after breakfast I secured an observation for my longitude, and,
having worked out my calculations, found that, if the boats were still
afloat, and had continued to steer the course which I had been told they
would, we must certainly find them that day. As on the preceding day,
the men spent their watch upon the yards, maintaining so keen a lookout
that even I, anxious as I was, felt satisfied they would allow nothing
to escape them. Yet the day passed, and evening arrived without the
discovery of any sign of the missing boats; while my anxiety grew more
painfully intense with the lapse of every hour of daylight. And when at
length the night closed down upon us, and the stars came winking mistily
out from between the driving clouds, the conviction came to me that
something had gone lamentably wrong, and that to continue the search any
further in the direction that we had been pursuing would be useless.
The question was: What had happened? I could think of but two possible
explanations of our failure to find the boats; one of which was that
they had been fallen in with and been picked up by a passing ship, while
the other was that they had experienced bad weather, which had driven
them out of their course. If the first explanation happened to be the
correct one, well and good--our missing comrades were safe; but if the
second explanation was to account for our non-success, in what direction
ought we to continue our search? The question was a very difficult one
to answer with any approach to accuracy, but an approximation to the
truth might be arrived at. I reasoned thus: The boats were undoubtedly
within the limits of the trade wind when we parted with them, and the
only disturbing influence that they would be likely to meet with in that
region would be that of the hurricane that we had encountered.
Reasoning thus, I went below and produced a chart of the North
Atlantic,--it was a French one, reckoning its longitude from the
meridian of Paris; but that difficulty was to be easily overcome,--and
upon it I forthwith proceeded to prick off, as accurately as the data in
my possession would permit, first, the spot where we had parted company
with the other boats; secondly, our own course and distance up to the
moment when the hurricane struck us; and thirdly, the supposititious
course and distance of each of the boats up to the moment when the
hurricane would probably strike them. The observations I had personally
made as to the bearing and course of the centre of the storm had
originally led me to the conclusion that the other boats had probably
escaped it altogether; and now, as I went over the matter afresh, I
could not persuade myself that they had encountered anything worse than
a mere fringe of it, a breeze strong enough perhaps to compel them to
run before it for a few hours, but nothing more. Assuming, then, this
to be the case, I calculated as nearly as I could the probable direction
of the wind when the gale struck them, and the number of hours during
which they would be likely to be compelled to run before it, pricking
off upon the chart their probable whereabouts at the moment when they
would be likely to find themselves once more able to head for, say,
Saint Thomas or Saint Kitts. From this point I laid off a course for
the former island, and then calculated their probable position on that
line at the moment, compared this with the position then occupied by the
schooner, and thus arrived at the new direction in which I ought to seek
for them. Having reached thus far, I went on deck, set the new course,
and then, with Lindsay's assistance, went over all my calculations
again, verifying every figure of them.
Luckily for our anxiety, the trade wind was now blowing so fresh that,
on an easy bowline as we were, a whole mainsail, foresail, and topsail,
with royal and topgallant sails stowed, was as much as we could stagger
under, the little witch dancing along at a good, clean eleven knots
under this canvas; the consequence being that in thirty-eight hours from
the moment of bearing up we had reached the spot where I intended that
my new search for the missing boats should begin.
This time, however, I intended to adopt a course of procedure exactly
opposite to that which I had followed while prosecuting my former
search. Then, I had gone to windward of the spot when I expected to
find the boats, and had run down to leeward along the course which I
thought it probable they had taken; but now my uncertainty as to their
precise position necessitated a search over a belt of ocean several
miles in width. I therefore determined to get well to leeward of the
spot where my calculations indicated that I ought to find them, and from
there work to windward on an easy bowline, making stretches of some
twenty-six miles in length. I had already ascertained the height of our
royal yard above the sea-level, and from that had calculated that a
lookout stationed at that elevation would command a circular area having
a radius of thirteen miles. If, therefore, I made stretches across a
circle of twenty-six miles' diameter, I should practically command a
belt of ocean of fifty-two miles in width; and this I deemed sufficient
for my purpose.
Accordingly, having reached our cruising-ground at two bells in the
forenoon watch, and having one hand on the royal yard as a lookout, with
two more on the topsail yard by way of additional precaution, we made
our first reach of thirteen miles in a south-easterly direction. Then,
nothing being in sight, we tacked and stood to the northward for twenty-
six miles. Still nothing in sight; so we hove about again, and this
time reached to the southward and eastward for a distance of twenty-six
miles, continuing our search thus throughout the entire day, without
success. At sunset we hove about again, and, reaching to the northward,
until we had arrived at the track which the boats, if still afloat,
would probably pass over, we hove-to for the night, hoisting three
lanterns, as before, to attract their attention should they happen to
arrive within sight of us during the hours of darkness. It was some
relief to us that the night was tolerably clear, with a fair sprinkling
of stars and a moon well advanced in her first quarter; so that, during
the first half of the night, we had a very fair amount of light.
I did not keep the lookout men aloft at night, deeming it useless, as
the light, although--as I have said--fairly good, was not bright enough
to reveal a small object like a boat at a greater distance than some two
or three miles, and up to that distance it was possible to see really
better from the level of the deck than from the more lofty elevation of
the yards; but I had three men continuously on the lookout at the same
time, namely, one on the jib-boom end, and one each to port and
starboard in the waist. We were hove-to on the starboard tack.
Needless to say, that although we had these three men thus stationed for
the express purpose of keeping a lookout and doing nothing else, Lindsay
and I also kept our eyes well skinned, going even to the length of
blinding the skylight with an old sail in order that our eyes might not
be dazzled by even the dim light of the cabin lamp.
It happened to be my eight hours in that night, and I had taken
advantage of the circumstance to turn in early, for the anxiety
attending upon this dishearteningly fruitless search was beginning to
tell upon me, and I had suffered for the last night or two from an
inability to sleep. On this particular occasion, however, I felt
somewhat drowsy, and therefore went to my bunk in the hope of getting
two or three hours' rest; and, as a matter of fact, I did sleep, but my
rest was so disturbed by frightful dreams of men enduring unheard-of
suffering in open boats, that at length, awaking in a paroxysm of
horror, I turned out and went on deck, to find that it was seven bells,
and that under any circumstances I should have been called in another
half-hour.
The moon was within a very short time of setting when I reached the
deck, and I stood watching her half-disc creeping insensibly nearer and
nearer to the horizon, lighting up the sky that way with a soft,
mysterious, brownish-green light, and casting a long, tremulous wake of
ruddy gold athwart the tops of the running surges. Lindsay was standing
beside me, yawning the top of his head nearly off, poor lad; for
although he too was anxious as to the fate of those who we were seeking,
his anxiety had not, thus far, interfered with his rest, and his watch
was now so nearly up that he was quite ready for the four hours' sleep
that awaited him.
I was in the very act of telling him that, as I should not go below
again, he might turn in if he chose,--my eyes being all the while fixed
upon the setting moon,--when suddenly, almost immediately under the
luminary, I caught a momentary glimpse of a small black object--small as
a pin-head--as it were hove-up on the back of a sea against the luminous
sky. Stopping short in what I was saying, I sprang to the rail, and
from thence into the main rigging, half a dozen ratlines of which I
ascended in order to gain a horizon clear of the run of the nearer seas.
From this elevation I again looked out, instinctively shading my eyes
under my hand, and in another moment I had again caught sight of the
object, and not only so, but had also detected an intermittent flashing,
as of the moonlight off the wet blades of oars.
"A boat! a boat!" I shouted, in the fulness of my delight. "Hurrah,
lads! we have one of them at last! Let draw the jib-sheet! Fill the
topsail! Up helm there, my man, and let her go broad off!"
As I rapidly issued these orders I swung myself out of the rigging, and,
running to the binnacle, took the bearing of the moon, allowing half a
point to the northward of her as the course to steer for the boat.
"Where is the gunner?" I shouted; "pass the word for Mr Robbins!"
"Here I am, sir," answered Robbins--for my words had thrilled through
the little craft like an electric shock, and already the watch below
were scrambling up through the hatchway, carrying their clothing in
their hands, in their eagerness to get a glimpse of the newly discovered
boat.
"Mr Robbins," said I, "have the goodness to clap a blank cartridge into
one of the guns, and fire it as an encouragement to those poor fellows
out there; they will guess, by our firing, that we have seen them."
"Ay, ay, sir," answered Robbins, shambling away with alacrity upon his
errand; and a few minutes later one of our guns rang out what I hoped
would prove a thrice-welcome message to our shipmates. Somehow I never
for a moment doubted that it was one of the frigate's boats that I had
seen; I felt as sure of it as though we had her already alongside,
although of course I could form no sort of surmise as to which of them
it would prove to be.
It took us but a very few minutes to run down to the boat, when, judging
our distance, we rounded-to and laid the topsail aback, so close to
windward of the little craft that one of our people was able to heave a
rope's-end into her, and we hauled her alongside. Then, to our supreme
disappointment, we discovered that it was _not_ either of the boats that
we were looking for, but the long-boat of a merchantman, with eleven
people in her, all of whom were in a very wasted and exhausted
condition, partly from famine and partly from wounds, most of them being
swathed about the head or limbs with bloodstained bandages.
Concealing our disappointment as well as we could, we helped the poor
creatures up over the side,--discovering, during the process, that the
rescued party were our fellow-countrymen,--and then, having removed
everything from the boat that promised to prove of the slightest value,
we cast her adrift, having no room on our decks for her. Meanwhile, the
unhappy strangers, being too weak to stand, had sunk down upon the deck,
pointing to their parched throats and feebly gasping the word "water";
in response to which appeal some of our own people had gone to work,
under my supervision, to supply them cautiously with small quantities of
water slightly dashed with brandy. This treatment had a wonderfully
stimulative and revivifying effect upon them, so much so, indeed, that
they managed to stagger to their feet and earnestly beg for food. This,
of course, we supplied them with forthwith, in the form of ship's bread
broken small and softened by steeping in weak brandy and water. I gave
them this pending the preparation of a more substantial and appetising
meal by the cook; and it was perhaps well that circumstances obliged me
to do so, for I afterwards learned that the administration of a solid,
substantial meal to people in their famished condition would probably
have had fatal results. Having satisfied to some small extent their
first ravenous craving for food and drink, we got them below and
provided them with such makeshift sleeping accommodation as the
resources of the schooner would permit, that they might seek in sleep
such further recuperation as was to be obtained, pending the production
of the meal in preparation for them. Having thus disposed of the
rescued men, nothing remained for us but to await, with such patience as
we could muster, the return of daylight, to enable us to resume the
search for the lost frigate's boats.
It was nearly noon next day ere any of the rescued party appeared on
deck, the first to do so being a fine, sailorly-looking man of some
forty or forty-five years of age, who introduced himself to me as
"Captain" Tucker of the late British barque _Wyvern_, of Bristol,
outward-bound to the West Indies with a general cargo of considerable
value. He informed me that all had gone well with him until eight days
previously, when, about noon, a strange sail was sighted in the south-
western board, standing to the northward, close-hauled on the starboard
tack.
"You may be sure," said Tucker, "that I kept a sharp eye upon her, for I
knew that, for _every_ honest merchantman that I happened to meet down
here, I was likely to meet with a dozen rogues, in the shape of
picaroons, privateers, or other craft of the enemy, or even our own men-
o'-war--no offence meant to _you_ in saying so, Mr Courtenay; but _you_
know, sir, as well as I do, that some of our men-o'-war treat British
merchantmen pretty nearly as bad as if they were enemies, boarding them
and impressing all their best men, and leaving them with so few hands
that if they happen to meet with bad weather it's ten chances to one of
their being able to take their ship to her destination. Well, knowing
this, I kept both eyes on the stranger, which I soon made out to be an
uncommonly smart and heavy brigantine, that, close-hauled as she was,
seemed to be travelling three feet to our one. She had a particularly
wicked look about her that I didn't half like; and I liked it still less
when, having drawn well up on our larboard beam, at a distance of some
five miles, I suddenly discovered that she was edging away for us. We
were already under stunsails, so I could do no more in the way of making
sail; but we mounted eight brass nine-pounders,--very pretty pieces they
were, too,--so I had them cleared away and loaded, in readiness for the
worst; for I took her to be a French or Spanish privateer, and I had no
notion of yielding my ship to any such vermin without making a fight for
it; and my own lads were quite of the same mind as myself, not liking
the idea of being locked up for years in a French or a Spanish prison.
"Well, sir, that brigantine came bowling along at such a pace that
within half an hour of the time when I noticed her to be edging down for
us she was within gun-shot; and no sooner was this the case than, yawing
broad off for a moment, she pitched a shot--an eighteen-pounder I took
it to be--across our fore-foot, as a polite hint to us to heave-to. But
I wasn't in the humour for heaving-to just then, so I hoisted my ensign
and kept all on as I was going.
"I expected that, seeing this, the brigantine would give us a sight of
her bunting, and open fire upon us in good earnest; but she didn't do
either. She just kept edging away, until in another five minutes she
was broad on our larboard quarter, running the same way that we were,
and creeping up with the evident intention of running us alongside.
Seeing this, I ordered Mr Thomson, my mate, to ram an extra shot down
upon the top of those we had already loaded our guns with, and to
depress the muzzles, so that we could fire down upon the brigantine's
low deck as she ranged up alongside. But I tell you, sir, that I didn't
half like the look of things; for by this time the craft was so close to
us that we saw down upon her decks quite distinctly, and she seemed to
be full of men--swarthy, greasy, black-bearded cut-throats, _every_ one
of them, if looks went for anything. In another minute or so she was
within biscuit-toss of us,--so close that we could hear the hissing
shear of her sharp stem through the water, and the moan of the wind in
the hollows of her canvas,--when up jumps a fellow upon her rail and
hailed us in what I took to be Spanish,--it wasn't French, I know,
because I can speak a little of that lingo,--at the same time pointing
to his gaff-end, up to which another ruffian at once began to hoist a
_black flag_.
"`So ho!' thinks I; `so it's _pirates_ we have to deal with, eh? Well,
that means neck or nothing, so here goes!' And with that I sings out to
the mate to throw open the ports--we'd kept them closed until now--and
let the rascals have it hot. No sooner said than done. Thomson gave
the word, the ports were thrown open, the nine-pounders run out, and the
next second four of our shot went smashing through the brigantine's
bulwarks, bowling over like ninepins every man that happened to be
standing in their way. The man on the rail jumped down off his perch as
nimbly as if he was scalded, and I heard him shout `Car-r-r-r-amba!' or
something like it, as he waved his hand to the man at the wheel. At the
same moment the brigantine delivered her broadside, and before the smoke
had time to clear away I heard and felt the crash of her as she dropped
alongside us fair in the waist. The next second--so it seemed to me--
our rail was alive with the dirty, garlic-smelling blackguards, who came
swarming over upon our decks until it seemed that there was no room for
more. Well, I had a pair of pistols and a sword, and each of our lads
had his cutlass, and for three or four minutes there was as pretty a
fight as you'd wish to see going on aboard the old _Wyvern_. Then,
while I was doing my best to hold my own against four of the rascals who
came crowding round me, I got a knock on the head from behind that made
me see about a million stars before I dropped senseless to the deck."