OUR REVENGE EXECUTED.
The evening, as it deepened into night, was calm and beautiful: as
yet the moon had not risen, but the sky was clear, with an intensity
and purity of blue that can only be found in the icy north, and
studded by ten thousand sparkling stars. Some of these were so
bright as almost to cast our shadows on the smooth water as we
stretched to our oars, and swept along the snow-white coast.
The latter being nearly destitute of inhabitants, after we left the
cove was voiceless, silent, and desolate. Not a light was visible,
and no sounds broke the stillness save the booming of the surf on the
rocks of Cape St. John, our own hard breathing, and the clatter of
the oars in the rowlocks. Then (as that is a species of noise which
the water conveys to a vast distance) we proceeded to muffle them by
our handkerchiefs, and once more we stretched out vigorously.
Notwithstanding the intensity of the cold, so invigorating was the
exercise of rowing, and so full were our minds of excitement and of
our project for destroying the pirate schooner, that we all felt in a
glow of heat, and almost uttered a shout when, after pulling about
three miles, on clearing the bluff Cape of St. John, on the flinty
brow of which the spray was frozen white as it was dashed up by the
sea, we saw the steep rocks of Gull Island; and at anchor, half a
mile to leeward of it, the dark hull and tall spars of the _Black
Schooner_!
The increasing light at one part of the horizon showed that the moon
would shortly be up, so we pulled with might and main to get close
under the lee of the island, and out of the long brilliant track the
Queen of Night would shortly send across the rippling ocean.
"I might have brought an auger and bored a hole or two in her
sheathing under water, and so have scuttled her quietly at her
anchors," said the carpenter.
"But that boring would have kept us alongside too long," said Hartly;
"and the rascals might have got some of their plunder out before she
went down; moreover, your auger would have made too much noise. But,
hush! we are seen--two fellows are looking over her side!"
"All her boats are gone," said I.
"Yes, to La Scie, except one at the stern."
"They are hailing us, sir," said Hammer.
"Hush! I'll weather the ruffians yet," said Hartly.
We spoke in whispers, while our hearts beat like lightning, as we
knew not the issue of our attempt, or the moment we might be fired on
from her deck. The schooner rode with both her anchors out, to make
sure of her holding-ground in case a squall came suddenly on. Her
canvas was neatly handed, her fore and aft foresail and boom mainsail
were tightly brailed up, and her topgallant yards sent down.
Though black and sombre, with nothing light about her save her
copper, which shone brightly as burnished gold in the clear and
starlit sea, she was a beautiful little vessel; and Hartly almost
sighed on thinking that he was about to destroy instead of capturing
her.
"She is a lovely craft!" said he, "sharp at the bows as a needle
below the water-line, clear at the counter, and coppered to the
bends. What a glorious yacht she would make!"
"In sheering alongside, take care, sir, they don't scuttle us--by a
cold shot, or a large stone," said Hammer.
"Well," replied Hartly, "my friend the Greenland witch said I should
never drown; but that does not prevent me from being shot, or hung
from the schooner's topsail yard."
As we pulled round across her bows to starboard, keeping pretty well
off, we were hailed again.
"Boat--boat ahoy! what are you?"
"Fishermen," replied Hartly.
"From where?"
"La Scie, where all your fellows are enjoying themselves."
"Got any feesh?" asked a Frenchman.
"No--not at this season."
"Any zeels?"
"Seals--no."
"Then prenez-garde, messieurs."
"Which means, in plain English, sheer off, d--n your eyes!" growled
the first speaker; but by this time we were close under her starboard
counter.
"Sheer off, or it may be the worse for you!"
"What the devil are you lubbers about under the counter?" exclaimed
another; "Baptiste, hand me a musket----"
"We have dropped an oar, and our boat has run foul of yours," replied
Hartly; adding, in a whisper, "The gimlet, carpenter--quick, the
gimlet!"
In less time than I have taken to write these last half-dozen lines,
Hartly had screwed the long gimlet into the vessel's side, under her
counter, and hooked on the bucket, through the iron ring which he had
secured to its handle, and there it hung close to the rudder and
stern-post. By the swift application of a single lucifer-match he
fired the touch-paper that was to light the carefully-prepared
combustibles, the gathering flame of which shot upward from the
bucket, and began at once to lick and flicker on the newly-painted
planking of the schooner.
"Shove off, and give way--for your lives, give way!" said Hartly, in
a hoarse whisper.
"Cut away stern-boat--let hims all burn--agh! agh!" grinned Cuffy,
who, by a slash of the knife which hung at his neck, cut adrift the
boat which was moored astern. We had not intended thus to destroy
the retreat of the wretches on board, but the African was merciless
to his enemies, and we had no time to repair his severity.
"Give way," shouted Hartly, as soon as we were clear of her; "clap on
dry nippers! By Jove! those lads of the knife and pistol will never
come athwart the hawse of the _Leda_ again!"
We had not pulled ten strokes from her, ere a flame seemed to play on
the water beneath her counter!
It spread rapidly between the rudder and sternpost, burning through
outer and inner sheathing; penetrating the rudder-case, and reaching
the cabin, which was unoccupied, as all the crew were ashore save the
six already mentioned, whom we saw loitering amidships. One was
provided with a musket, which no doubt he would have discharged at
us, had we lingered another moment alongside.
Suddenly they raised a shout; then we saw them rush aft, when they
immediately discovered the vessel to be on fire, and that their only
boat was adrift!
He with the musket took a long aim at us, and fired; but as we were
now three hundred yards from the schooner, and our boat was
alternately rising and falling on the long rolling swell that heaved
between Gull Island and Cape St. John, his shot fell far from us.
By this time the schooner was hopelessly on fire; her whole
quarter-deck, stern, and cabin, forward to the mainmast, were sheeted
with red and roaring flame. It spread along the deck; it leaped up
the well-greased masts like a fiery corkscrew, round the tarred
rigging and over the handed canvas, till everything was in a blaze;
the great fore and aft sails fell from their brails like fiery
curtains; then we saw her two tall, slender spars, the long boom of
her mainsail, her towering gaffs and topsail yards, all swaying
to-and-fro, as the decks fell in and the shrouds sank smouldering
into the sea. Then everything went to cinders fore and aft--aloft
and alow!
A lurid glare that outshone the light of the rising moon, overspread
the calm blue sea, casting a ruddy glow upon our faces as we paused
upon our oars, close to the island, where the weird illumination
scared all the sea-birds; thus we heard the shrill scream of the
wagel or great grey gull, as he rose with booming wings and flew to
seek the darker waters of the offing or the frozen bluffs of Cape St.
John, on which the thundering breakers as they reared their heads,
gleamed in the double light of red and silver, like showers of
diamonds and rubies.
"Jack--see how she burns!" said Hartly: "there goes her mainmast
crash into the sea--and now the foremast, a mass of whizzing sparks,
with all its top-hamper! Pull for the island, till the brig comes
abreast of it;" and then cheerily he sang--
"Haul away, pull away, pull, jolly boys!
At the mercy of fortune we go,
_We're in for it now_, and 'tis all folly, boys,
To be faint or downhearted, yeho!"
By this time the schooner was a mass of fire, and burnt down nearly
to her bends. Through the flames we could see the blackened stumps
of her timber-heads, standing in a row from stem to stern. Suddenly
there was an explosion, and a mighty column of red and blue sparks
and burning brands shot into mid air, arching over in every direction
as they fell hissing into the sea.
A quantity of powder had exploded on board!
Just at that moment we beached our boat upon Gull Island, and
ascended the rocks in haste to view the result of our handiwork.
A great cloud of smoke was now settling over her, as the flames
approached the water; and beyond this cloud we could see a little
boat with some men in it, pulling in the direction of Cape St. John.
Hartly was pleased on seeing this; for although he had resolved to
destroy the schooner, his heart reproached him for leaving six of the
pirates to perish in her. One, no doubt, had swum after their
drifting boat, and brought her alongside in time to save his five
shipmates; and then we laughed on thinking how cold his swim would be
in the wintry waves, and of the baffled rage of the ruffians at La
Scie, left there without a vessel or any means of escape from a
desolate fishing-station, which in a week or two more would have,
perhaps, three hundred miles of field-ice between it and the sea.
A faint hurrah now came from seaward. We turned, and saw the smart
and saucy _Leda_ with her foresail backed flat to the mast, and her
maintopsail full and swelling--her straight sharp hull, and her taut
rigging, in all its details, clearly and distinctly defined against
the vast silver disc of the moon, which seemed to linger as it rose
from the flat horizon of the distant offing. There was no need of
showing lights on board the brig, as we could see each other
distinctly, and also the burning pirate. No flame rose from her now;
but a vast black pall of smoke enveloped all her hull.
From the centre of this, there came a sound like a deep sob, as she
filled and went down. Then when the smoky pall arose and melted into
thin air, not a vestige could be seen of the _Black Schooner_!
"And now, my lads, away for the brig," said Captain Hartly, as we
descended from the highest part of the island to reach our boat,
passing through deep snow, among thickets of dwarf firs and great
juniper trees--over rocks covered with savin and frozen furze, where,
in the short season of summer, the wild Indian tea called
_wisha-capucoa_ grew plentifully, and where the beaver and the
musk-rat had their holes.
As we floundered down to the creek, a yell from Cuffy Snowball, who
was behind, startled us all. A wild cariboo deer had rushed past
him. How it came on the island puzzled us, for usually in winter
these animals seek the forests of the interior, till the sun of the
brief summer melts the snow, and enables them to browse on the scanty
herbage of _the barrens_, as the cleared patches of moorland are
named by the squatters.
"If the Governor adheres to his proclamation, this night's work adds
five hundred pounds to our profits," said Hartly, as the crew
received us with hearty cheers; the headsails were filled, and we at
once stood off the shore.
Next morning, when day broke, we could see by our glasses a band of
men assembled on the snow-covered summit of Cape St. John.
These were evidently the outwitted crew of the schooner; so, hoisting
the ensign at our gaff-peak, Paul Reeves dipped it to them thrice,
ironically bidding them farewell, as we stood away to the eastward to
make up for the time we had lost in being driven, by their attack and
pursuit, so far out of the course our captain first intended to steer.