homeward sail across the bay did great credit to the qualities of the
_Elephant_. Nevertheless there was much tacking to and fro, while Pete
and Sam listened to the two old sailors. There was really hardly
anything for them to do but to exchange yarns about their voyages in the
splendid clipper-ships which were now being driven from the seas by that
terrible fellow, Steam.
"Pete," said Sam, as they stepped out at last upon the wharf, "ain't I
glad I came."
"I'm glad you did," replied Pete; "but the Captain's going to take us
out again, any day."
THE END.
A LOYAL TRAITOR.
A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER X.
TEST TRIALS.
We did not proceed to sea, as it had been expected that we should, but
we stretched several new sails, and the Captain marked them for
alteration by the ship's sail-maker, much as a tailor changes the cut of
a coat to secure a proper fitting. The men were made to take their
positions at the guns, and I found that I had been made a second captain
of the long 12-pounder, and was expected to work the roller handspike in
getting her into position. For three long hours we were kept at this,
slewing the guns hither and thither, aiming and gauging distance, and
bringing powder and shot from the magazines. Of course we indulged in no
firing, but served the pieces in pantomime.
The men appeared eager, and I could see that Captain Temple looked
pleased at their performance. The majority were old hands, and needed
little schooling. There is no use denying it, they _jumped_ to the best
of their ability. But my trial was soon to come. Most of the greenhorns
had been enrolled into a company of marines. They were standing in an
awkward row arranged in the waist, and keeping out of the way of the
more experienced gunners who were indulging in the mimic battle.
"Debrin!" called a voice. "Pass the word for Debrin."
A squint-eyed bowlegged boatswain's mate was bawling about the deck.
For an instant I was so confused that I almost forgot the name I had
assumed.
"Here!" I called at last, with my heart giving a wild leap into my
throat. I gave over the roller handspike to my friend of the night
before, and the boatswain's mate looked at me out of his crooked eyes.
"The old man wishes to speak to you," he said, in a low voice.
I stepped aft and pulled off my cap, as I had seen the other sailors do.
"Take hold of those gawk-legs and lick them into shape," said Captain
Temple, apparently counting up my ribs as he looked me through and
through. "You say you know the drill. There's a rack of muskets forward
on the berth-deck, and a chest of cutlasses at the after-ladder. If any
one gives you a sneer or a back word make him sweat his blood."
I hope that the quiver that went over me was not apparent, but I felt a
cold sensation from my chest to the end of my spine. Now, as it
happened, I had watched closely, as a boy, the drilling of the
train-band at Baltimore, where I learned much from my friend the Major,
and had once formed a company of my schoolmates at Mr. Thompson's,
electing myself their leader. I tried to recall the orders of command
and the positions as I marched the men below and armed them at the rack.
But when I came back to the deck I was again seized with a fit of
trembling that made me keep in movement to conceal it, for I perceived
that those under me were watching with some curiosity to see what I
should do. Besides this, it appeared to my imagination that all the crew
were standing about with popping eyes, ready to laugh at me if I should
open my mouth. So I took a long swallow, threw back my head and
shoulders (ah! there is nothing like it to keep up one's courage!) and
adopting a terse mode of speech, I began to sift the men into military
shape, according to their height.
My uncle had impressed one thing upon my mind as the surest way to
obtain authority; it was not to make men hear, but to make them listen;
so I did not shout, but endeavored to speak in low firm tones,
explaining to the men as I gathered them into line how they should stand
and hold themselves. Some were inclined to smile at first, and indeed I
cannot blame them; for despite my size, my youth was evident, no matter
my air of authority.
To those who appeared amused I kept repeating my instructions until the
grin had faded from their faces, and at last I felt that feeling which
expands the spirit of the holder of it--the sense of authority over
others. So stepping out before them, I picked up a musket and began to
drill them according to my recollection of the manual of arms.
If there had been an expert present, he might have found some fault with
my method, but I got through without a hitch, and I might claim, without
boasting, that I held attention. Over and over again we went through the
motions. I was wondering whether there was to be no time limit to the
drill, when suddenly some one spoke to me from behind.
"Very good, drill-master," said Mr. Bullard. "Dismiss the landsmen, and
take up the boarders with some cutlass-work."
The muskets returned to the racks, I once more came on deck, and found
that I had to face a very different ordeal. There, awaiting me, were
thirty or forty sailor-men--I could see that at a glance. They regarded
the idea of my instructing them as something of a huge joke, for they
stood there open-mouthed and nudging one another, half sneering, and all
whispering. As soon as I took the position of "on guard," I noticed that
some of them fell into it at once involuntarily, but others displayed an
awkwardness that I knew must be premeditated. Now was the time for me to
stand or fall.
I stepped up to a tall man who topped me by half a head, and bidding him
stand out, I gently pushed him into the right position, moulding him, as
it were, and paying no attention to the anger which flashed in his eyes
and drew the corners of his mouth. The rest were becoming interested,
but I saw that they were not grinning at me now, but at their messmate.
Satisfied that the man could do what I wished, I again gave the order
for them to act together. The tall sailor twisted his cutlass in his
hand and held it upside down. Once more, as if believing this came from
sheer stupidity, I went through the same performance, trying to speak
kindly and firmly, but really on the verge of breaking down. Three times
did I do this, and then the man succumbed.
But I had not finished. On the left of the line was a short, thick-set
foretopman, with brawny, tattooed arms. Apparently he considered himself
beyond all this and an adept with the weapon, for he indulged in side
remarks that set those near him tittering, and he exaggerated all my
motions. I saw that he was a leader in his way, and that for comfort's
sake I should have him with me, so I called the others to a rest, and
bade this man step forward. He did so in a careless, jaunty way,
although his face had reddened. Placing him before me, I told all hands
to observe me closely; that I would show them the bad effect of too open
a guard and too lowered a point. It was a dangerous game to play,
perhaps, but I called upon the seaman to make the various cuts and
thrusts at my head and body. He did so with a vengeance, and it took all
my strength to keep him from reaching me.
Captain Temple and the other officers had gathered in a little knot to
one side and were watching. My blood was up, and I would rather have
died than fail in what I was attempting. So I called upon the man to
guard himself, and assured him that I would not harm him. Keeping my
wrist well up, I told him to have a care of his left cheek. He grinned
in reply. By a quick motion, the secret of which Monsieur de Brienne had
taught me (for he was an adept with the broadsword as well as with the
rapier), I got inside the man's guard and laid my blade along his
throat. I well believe I could have severed his head from his body with
a backward draw-stroke. The man paled and clinched his teeth. I resumed
my position, with my eyes fixed on his, for I feared mischief. Then
using the same movement that I had in my encounter with Captain Temple,
I twisted his blade from his grasp and sent it flying. I verily believe
it would have gone overboard had it not caught a stay overhead. Picking
it up myself before any one could reach it, I returned it to him, and he
stepped back into the ranks. I had no more trouble after that.
Now, strange as it may seem, when I got away I went forward and leaned
out of an open port, and there, for some strange reason, the strain
under which I had been laboring almost overcame me, and it was all I
could do to keep from sobbing or to control the shaking of my limbs.
While crouched there I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and looking up I
saw it was Edmundson, the Third Lieutenant.
"The Captain wishes to speak to you in the cabin, lad," he said, kindly.
"Jump aft."
When I entered the plainly furnished little space, for the quarters of
the officers were almost as confined as those of the crew, I saw that
Captain Temple was sitting at the end of the table, which was covered
with open charts. He looked up, and seeing who it was, half smiled.
[Illustration: "IF YOU ARE AS GOOD A SAILOR AS YOU ARE A SWORDSMAN, YOU
WILL END THIS CRUISE AN OFFICER."]
"Debrin," he said, "you have done well. If you are as good a sailor as
you are a swordsman, you will end this cruise an officer. This is more
than I have ever said in the way of praise or promise to any living man.
Forget it, and do your duty."
I could not have replied at this moment, for my wits left me; so I
merely touched my forehead in salute, and went forward again. I could
see that the men were whispering, and it was all I could do to hide my
embarrassment. I believe that I was blushing like a schoolgirl.
The next day was a repetition of this one, albeit the work was quite
easy for me, and I grew keen with the interest of it. The Fourth
Lieutenant, a Mr. Spencer, arrived in the afternoon; and a sergeant, who
had served in the army, was enlisted as a Lieutenant of marines.
Apparently he found no fault with whatever they had been taught under my
instruction, and Sutton, the man with whom I had had the passage of
arms, came to me to learn the disarming stroke. As I met him more than
half-way in this overture, we became friendly. In the afternoon I
endeavored to get ashore (oh, how I wished to talk to Mary!), and I was
delighted at being one of the crew that pulled Captain Temple to the
wharf at six o'clock.
Captain Temple's stay on shore, however, had been short, consisting
merely of a visit to Mr. McCulough's office (the latter was part owner
of the _Young Eagle_), and I got no chance to run up into the town, as I
had intended. My wish, if it were possible, to get another glimpse of
Mary Tanner, was frustrated. This fortune was not to be mine. Oh, one
thing that I almost came to forgetting: On the pier, standing in the
crowd, was Gaston, his outrageous black hat tied about with a streamer
and his long cloak flapping about his shanks. I doubt not the people
were making fun of him. But he did not recognize me, and I breathed more
freely.
As we rowed back to the ship, I heard the Captain say to a
caderverous-looking man who had joined him at the dock with a big bundle
and an oak chest,
"Well, Mr. Flemming, we sail on the early tide to-morrow."
The new-comer was the ship's surgeon, and one of the bowmen observed to
me, as we got the gig up at the davits,
"Well, messmate, how would you like old sawbones there to take a hack at
you--eh, Johnny?"
I might state, if I have not done too much bragging in this chapter
already, that I had already received a nickname in the forecastle, and
was known as "Johnny Cutlass," which, instead of resenting, I felt quite
proud of.
The stays and running-gear were tested and made taut before the
nightfall, and all sorts of stories went from lips to lips concerning
our destination. Some said northward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence; others
declared that the Spanish main would be our cruising-ground; while a
few asserted that nothing but the English Channel would please old
"Kill Devil."
Now whither we were bound, of a truth I never found out, and of this I
will speak at some length, and give a strange accounting. My, but I was
tired when at last I got into my hammock!
* * * * *
Although it was very early in the morning when the tide was at the
flood, a large crowd had gathered at the shore to watch us set sail. It
was a damp, low-clouded day.
A fifer had been discovered among the landsmen, and hardly had I reached
the deck, sleepily rubbing my eyes, when he began to pipe a merry jig
step; the men fitted the capstan bars to the capstan, and while some
scrambled aloft, as many as could lay hold and find foot room began
trotting merrily about to the music. In came the cable, a couple of men
alongside slushing it with water to keep the black mud off the deck, and
slowly the _Young Eagle_ walked up to her anchor. A slight breeze was
blowing toward the mouth of the harbor, and the foresail and top-sail
fluttered and caught it. A faint cheer sounded from the wharves, and the
crew answered. Then the brass swivel on the forecastle cracked out a
salute, and the privateer was off for adventures.
A wild exhilaration thrilled me, but I could see that I was not the only
one affected in this manner. A double allowance of grog had been served
as soon as we were under way. I tasted it, of course, and it burned my
throat like fire, so that I handed my allowance to Sutton, thereby
cementing the friendship that had sprung up between us, and it was not
bad policy.
Soon Fishers Island and the mainland faded out in the blotch of gray fog
that, despite the wind, hung all around. And now, as if to test the
seamanship of the crew, sails were taken in and spread again, and as the
wind increased the brig heeled over until the sea was roaring and
tumbling along her rail, and the lower sails were wet with the splash of
the spray as it flew across the deck. But there was no stopping the
headway of the little vessel as she met the heavy ground-swell of the
ocean. There was none of the thumping that I remembered hearing on board
the old _Minetta_.
One great, hairy-chested fellow, as fine a specimen of a sailor as I
ever saw, swung his arms about his head and gazed up at the swelling
sails.
"Oh, oh! isn't she a beauty?" he exclaimed. "A darling ship! Ay, she's a
sweetheart!"
There was an accent of love and of admiration in this that was not to be
mistaken; his speech rang with a worshipfulness that was contagious. I
caught it and could have shouted.
The last boat to leave the shore had brought off to the ship what
appeared to me to be a load of old iron. Apparently short crowbars
fastened on rings, and cannon balls welded together by solid bars of
iron or attached to each other with short lengths of chain. Fearing to
ask what they were, although I knew not, I waited for some landsman less
ashamed of his ignorance than I to ask their meaning. My lanky friend
who swung with me was the means of my finding out what I wished.
"What are they?" he inquired. "Those things in the boat?"
"Them's Yankee tricks," answered the squint-eyed quartermaster, "and
four of them will do more damage in walking through a vessel's rigging
than a frigate's broadside. They're British puzzlers."
They were the dreaded star-shot and chain-shot that the English had
declared barbarous and inhuman in warfare, for what reason they or no
one else could tell you; but they were fearsome things in battle, and
this I had afterwards a chance to witness and can subscribe to.
About noon the wind had died away, and the fog thickened, and we
drifted, heaving and rearing in the smooth round seas. I had more of a
chance to observe the people whom I supposed I was to live with for the
next few months. The great majority of them were fine Yankee seamen, men
who had served on merchant-vessels or in the Marblehead fishing-fleet,
typical Down-Easters, with a scattering of sailors who had seen service
on board vessels of the navy. There were a few foreigners, Portuguese or
Spaniards, I should judge, quick, active men with black hair and wiry
frames. Some rough-looking characters there were, too, whose faces
showed instincts not all the best, and, as I have said before, a
scattering of countrymen making their first voyage filled out the
complement.
The threshing and moving of the vessel seemed to discommode these
latter, and many were ill, and wished themselves ashore, I take it, from
their looks (one or two desired to die, I am sure). In the little
steerage four or five prize-masters bunked together. They were mostly
men past middle age, and had the appearance of broken down seafarers,
and the majority of them were prone to the bottle habit, unless they
belied their appearance. In all there were crowded on board the _Young
Eagle_ in the neighborhood of one hundred and thirty souls, perhaps
more.
I have never seen any one so careful of detail as Captain Temple. He
would permit no slouching in appearance, as well as duty. There was an
attempt at uniform; and the forecastle, and in fact the whole vessel,
was inspected by him as regularly as if she were a man-of-war.
Odd to relate, the skipper himself was a teetotaler when at sea, no
matter what his behavior was when dry ground was beneath him. To show
his carefulness and regard for neatness, I heard him rate a man severely
for not being clean shaven. His own costume, in which he looked most
picturesque, would have attracted attention anywhere. He wore his huge
cocked hat set lightly athwartships on his head, his neat blue coat
fitted his trim figure to a nicety, and his legs were encased in Hessian
boots with gold tassels, like those of a dandy. In fact he was a
handsome man to look at, and there were stories about his being a great
favorite with the ladies.
Junior officers get their key from their commander, and although our
Lieutenants did not present so fine an appearance or wear their clothes
so well, they were a good-looking set, and all young men with the
exception of Edmundson, who may have turned forty odd.
All night long the fog hung about us. We had been drilled during the
day, and never have I seen a crew pick up so much knowledge in such a
short space of time.
After breakfast on the second day the fog-bank lifted, and land was made
out to the northwest. I heard one of the officers say that it was
Montauk Point. A slight wind was stirring, and we sailed on, steering
south by west, and by noon we had sunk the headland, and a cry came down
from aloft that a sail was in sight to windward. We altered our course,
and made in the direction of the stranger. An air of eagerness showed in
the faces of the crew. I fairly believe that some of them began to count
upon their share of prize-money. As the other vessel was approaching,
soon we could see her from the deck.
She was bringing the wind with her, and had all sails set, stu'n'-sails
and royals. Mr. Spencer went aloft, and took a squint from the
cross-trees, through the glass. All hands were watching him, and the way
he hastened down to the deck showed that he had something to
communicate. This was evident, for immediately the _Young Eagle_ was
hove to, and then put before the wind.
"Old Kill Devil's changed his mind, I reckon," said Sutton, the
foretopman, coming up to me. "And he wouldn't without good reason, you
can bet a cotton hat. Now to my way of thinking, that vessel's an
English frigate, unless it be one of our own, as the Johnnie Bulls
generally sail in company."
It soon became evident that it was Temple's intention to give the
on-comer as wide a berth as possible, for we spread every stitch we had,
and steered a more westerly course. It was thick weather up aloft, and
the sunlight barely filtered through it. But it was one of those days
when distance is hard to judge, the sea one dead gray-green, with no
flash or change in color, and nothing to tell whether the horizon was
five miles off or twenty--nothing but the white sails of the approaching
vessel, and occasionally a sight of the dark hull lifting underneath the
canvas.
We were holding our own quite well, with perhaps a slight gaining on the
pursuer, for such she had become, when the fog began to lower, or
better, we ran into it. It thickened, and soon we could see nothing but
the heaving water fading into a gray wall at a distance of a few hundred
feet.
We took in our kites, and squaring the yards, changed our course to the
northward. The interest was less intense now, owing to the other vessel
being out of sight, and Captain Temple's evident intention was to give
her the slip and let her pass to the southward of us. For two hours we
sailed on. It had grown lighter overhead, as if all the clouds had
settled down upon us; but occasionally we caught a glimpse of sunlight
and blue sky.
I lay on my back against the bowsprit with my hands under my head. I was
thinking of the strange life that I had led, and wondering what my uncle
thought of my strange disappearance. Why had old Gaston pursued me to
Stonington, and what a lugubrious figure he had presented standing there
on the dock in that strange head-gear! Of course this brought me to
thinking of Mary also, and I put my hand inside the bosom of my shirt.
There was the rose that she had given me, and that I had carefully
pinned in a wrapping of strong paper. But my thoughts were interrupted
by a sudden commotion. A man who had been aloft for some reason or
other, disentangling the color halyards, which had fouled the
main-truck, if I remember right, suddenly gave a shout.
"Sail, ho, to windward!" he cried. And never have I seen a man get to
deck so quickly. He jumped the last twelve feet off the ratlines to the
deck, and ran aft. Temple and Mr. Edmundson came forward to meet him.
What he said was heard distinctly.
"I can make out the topsails of a vessel above the fog, sir, not much
above a mile to windward. She's bearing down upon us."
The way that Captain Temple tripped aloft showed that he was a topman,
and one of the best. Edmundson, although a larger man, was not far
behind them. And all hands watched them make their way to cross-trees
and swarm up higher. Then we could see they were pointing. Quickly they
descended to the deck. Mr. Spencer, and Bullard, and the prize-masters
had all come on deck. The crew also were gathered amidships.
"It's the English frigate," said Temple, in a whisper. (As I was
standing close by I caught the words distinctly.) "She must have us in
sight from aloft. Our top-gallant-masts are plain to view. Ecod, we'll
fool them, though," he cried, "if this fog holds."
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A SIBERIAN SCHOOL-ROOM.]
THE SCHOOLBOY OF SIBERIA.
BY W. H. JACKSON.
The word Siberia recalls a broad yellow space across the map of northern
Asia, with a dot here and there for a town with an unpronounceable name;
and that is about all any of us knew of Siberia when your father and I
were boys. But we are beginning to learn better, and the person old or
young who now speaks of that country as a barren stretch of forests and
marshes, where the people wear furs most of the time, and live mainly on
seal-blubber, shows himself far behind the times.
[Illustration: STARTING OFF FOR A HOLIDAY.]