Two mornings later--the _Wasp_ being at the time off Ysabelica Point,
which is the most northerly point of the island of Hayti--I was awakened
by young Dundas, one of the two midshipmen whom I had on board. He
entered my cabin, laid his hand lightly on my shoulder, and, as I
started up at his touch, said:
"I beg your pardon, Mr Delamere, for entering your cabin, but I knocked
twice and you did not seem to hear me. The gunner is sorry to have you
disturbed, sir, but he would be very much obliged if you would come on
deck for a minute or two."
"Very well," said I; "I will be up in a brace of shakes. Just turn up
the lamp, if you please, youngster, and let us have a little more light
on the subject. Ah! that's better, thanks. Kindly hand me those
unmentionables. I say, Mr Dundas, there doesn't seem to be very much
wind. What's the weather like?"
"Stark calm, sir; smooth water, and as dark as the inside of a cow,"
answered the lad.
"Does the weather look threatening, then; or what does--? But never
mind; those shoes, if you please. Thanks. That will do. Now I am
ready. Away you go, youngster."
Preceded by the lad, I passed into the fore-cabin and thence up on deck,
where, as Dundas had picturesquely intimated, the darkness was profound
and the air breathless, save for the small draughts created by the
flapping of the great mainsail to the gentle movements of the schooner
upon the low undulations of the swell.
As I stepped out on deck I heard Henderson's voice close at my elbow,
although the man himself was invisible.
"Sorry to have been obliged to disturb you, Mr Delamere," he said, "but
something's happened that I thought you ought to know about."
"Yes?" I remarked interrogatively. "Well, what was it, Henderson?"
"Well, it's like this here, sir," he replied. "We've been becalmed this
last hour or more, durin' which the schooner have been boxin' the
compass, while it's been that close and muggy that one don't seem to
have been able to get air enough to breathe. And the closeness made me
feel so drowsy that, to prevent myself from droppin' off to sleep, I've
been obliged to keep on my feet, pacing fore and aft atween the main
cabin skylight and the main riggin'. The watch have coiled theirselves
away somewheres, and I don't doubt but what they're snatchin' a
cat-nap--and I haven't troubled to disturb 'em, sir, for the lookout on
the fo'c's'le is keepin' his eyes skinned.
"Well, a few minutes ago--it may be five, or it may be ten--I'd just
swung round to walk aft from the main riggin' when, as my eyes travelled
away out here over the port quarter, I got the notion into my head that
there was somethin' goin' on down there, for it seemed to me that I'd
got a glimpse--out of the corner of my eye, as it might be--of a small
sparkin', like--like--well, hang me if I know what it was like, unless
it might be twenty or thirty pistols or muskets all being fired close
after one another."
"Ah!" I ejaculated. "And did you hear any sound, Henderson--anything
like that of distant firing, for instance?"
"No, Mr Delamere; not a sound, sir," answered the gunner. "But then,"
he continued, "that ain't very surprisin' when you comes to think of it,
for just listen to what's goin' on aboard here--the old hooker ain't so
very noisy, I'll allow; still, what with the rustlin' of the canvas
overhead, the patter of the reef-points, the creakin' of the jaws o' the
mainboom, the clank o' the wheel-chains, and the wash and gurgle of the
water alongside with the roll of her, there's not much chance of pickin'
up sounds comin' from a distance, is there, sir?"
"No, that is true, there is not," I admitted. "Did you see, or hear,
anything else, Henderson?" I asked.
"No, sir; never another thing," answered the gunner. "And I'd like ye
to understand, Mr Delamere, that I wouldn't care actually to stand up
in court and swear that I really saw what I told ye; for, as I
explained, I only caught the thing out o' the tail-end of my eye, as it
might be, and then 'twas gone again, and I saw nothin' more. But the
impression that I really had seen something was so strong that I felt it
was my duty to report it."
"Of course; you did perfectly right," I agreed; "particularly in view of
the task that has been given us to do. Did the lookout see anything of
this appearance of flashes?"
"No, sir," answered Henderson; "he didn't. Nat'rally he wouldn't, for
he was keepin' a lookout ahead and on either bow, while this here
flashin' showed--if it really did show at all, and wasn't my
imagination--out there over the port quarter."
"Quite so," I concurred. "Under those circumstances he would not be in
the least likely to see the appearance. Did it occur to you to take the
bearing of the spot where you thought you saw those flashes?"
"Yes, sir, it did," answered Henderson. "I stood, just for a second or
two, to see if there was any more comin': and then, not seein' anything,
I went straight to the binnacle and took the bearin', which I found to
be nor'-west and by west, half west."
With one consent we both walked aft to the binnacle and peered into it.
The schooner had swung several points while the gunner had been spinning
his somewhat long-winded yarn, for the bearing which he gave now lay
about a point over the starboard quarter. I stared into the blackness
in that direction, but could see nothing. Then I got the night glass
and, setting it to my focus, raised it to my eye, pointing it out over
the starboard quarter and sweeping it slowly and carefully to right and
left. For a minute or two I saw nothing; then, as I swept the tube
along what I judged to be the line of the horizon, a tiny smudge of
radiance--so dim as to be scarcely more than a suggestion--seemed to
float athwart the lenses and was gone again. There is probably nothing
in ordinary life much more difficult than to pick up and retain in the
lenses of a telescope, levelled by hand, a spark of light so minute and
faint as to be invisible to the unaided eye in the midst of the
surrounding darkness, and the difficulty is enhanced when the attempt is
made from the deck of a small vessel oscillating though ever so gently
on the ridges of a long, low-running swell, and for the life of me I
could not again find the feeble glimmer that had seemed to swim athwart
the instrument, try as I would.
"It is no good, Henderson," I said at last, abandoning the attempt in
despair, and handing the telescope over to him. "I am almost certain
that for a single instant I caught a faint blur of light away out there;
but I cannot find it now. Take the glass, and see if you can meet with
any better success. But verify your bearing before you do so."
The schooner had swung a point or two further round by this time, and
the bearing now lay broad over the starboard beam, in which direction
Henderson pointed his glass. Meanwhile Dundas, the midshipman who had
called me, had slipped down below and brought his own telescope on deck,
and was working away with it, but neither he nor the gunner met with any
luck; and I was about to try my hand again when a slight lessening of
the intensity of the darkness away down in the eastern quarter indicated
the approach of dawn. In those low latitudes the transition from night
to day, and _vice versa_, is extraordinarily rapid, occupying but a few
minutes; and, even as we stood watching, the pallor strengthened and
spread to right and left and upward, suggesting the stealthy but rapid
withdrawal of an infinite number of dark gauze curtains from the face of
the firmament, until presently the eastern quadrant of the horizon
became visible, the pallid sea showing like a surface of molten lead,
sluggishly undulating like the coils of a sleeping snake, while overhead
stretched an unbroken pall of dark grey cloud that seemed to promise a
drenching downpour of rain before long.
The light from the east stole upward among the clouds and westward along
the surface of the sea with amazing rapidity, yet to our impatience its
progress seemed exasperatingly slow, for away down in the west the
darkness was still profound. And yet, even as we gazed, that darkness
seemed to become diluted, as it were, with the advancing light that we
could almost see sliding along the surface of the water, until suddenly,
as though emerging from an invisible mist, a ghostly object appeared,
grey and elusive, against the background of darkness, and with one voice
we all three shouted:
"There she is?"
Yes, there she was--a large ship, about seven miles away, lying
becalmed, like ourselves, with all plain sail set, to her royals and
flying-jib. For perhaps half a minute after our first sight of her the
light was too weak and uncertain to enable us to discern details; but as
we kept our telescopes persistently bearing upon her, first one
distinctive feature and then another became revealed.
"She's a full-rigged ship, lying broadside-on to us, Mr Delamere,"
announced young Dundas.
"So I perceive," I returned somewhat dryly. "And I notice, also, that
she has swung with her head to the southward."
"She's a big lump of a craft, not very far short of 900 tons, I should
say," commented Henderson, with his eye still glued to the eye-piece of
the schooner's glass. "And," he continued, after a slight pause, "I
reckon she's a foreigner; that high poop and them deep-curvin'
headboards never took shape in a British shipyard, I'm prepared to swear
to that. Looks to me like a Dutchman. What do you think, Mr
Delamere?"
"I agree with you that she is undoubtedly a foreigner," answered I; "but
I don't think she is Dutch--there is too much gilding and
gingerbread-work about her quarters for that. There,"--as the sun broke
through the clouds and showed his upper rim above the horizon, flashing
a long, level beam along the surface of the water, striking the stranger
and causing the stern of her to blaze into a sudden flame of glittering
radiance--"do you see that, Henderson? Her quarter is a solid mass of
painted and gilded carving. The Dutchman is too economical, too fond of
the dollars to lavish so much gold-leaf as that on the adornment of his
ship; he prefers to put the money into extra bolts and fastenings. No;
that fellow is a Spaniard, or I'm greatly mistaken!"
"Spaniard, or Dutch, or French, it don't make much difference to us, Mr
Delamere," answered the gunner, as he replaced the telescope in the
beckets; "she'll give us a nice little bit o' prize-money as soon as the
breeze comes and enables us to run down alongside her."
"Ay, that she will--if she doesn't happen to be a man-o'-war--and I
don't believe she is," I answered, as I again levelled my glass at her.
"No," I continued, "she is no man-o'-war, although I see she shows a set
of teeth; but there are not many of them, they are all small pieces, and
half of them may be quakers, for what we can tell to the contrary. She
is a Spanish West Indiaman, I believe, bound, no doubt, to Cartagena, or
some other port on the Main; and she has probably come in through the
Handkerchief, or Turks Islands Passage. Well, there does not seem to be
much chance of the wind coming just yet, Henderson, so you had better
get your head-pump rigged and muster your scrubbers; meanwhile I will
have my bath, as usual, and then get dressed, so as to be all ready by
the time that the breeze comes."
When eight o'clock and breakfast-time arrived there was no perceptible
change in the aspect of the weather, which remained stark calm; while
the heavy pall of cloud that had shrouded the night sky had thinned away
to a kind of dense haze in the midst of which the sun throbbed--a great
shapeless splotch of misty light that, notwithstanding its partial
veiling, still contrived to impart a scorching quality to the breathless
atmosphere.
As I ascended to the deck after breakfast I found Pearce, the boatswain,
whose watch it now was, apparently waiting for my reappearance. He held
the schooner's glass in his hand, and had evidently spent practically
the whole time since eight bells in watching the stranger.
"I've been thinkin', Mr Delamere," he began, "how would it be to get
the boats out and go after that chap? We could do it quite
comfortable--take possession of her, leave a prize-crew aboard her, and
get back to the schooner again before dinner."
"No doubt," I agreed. "But why should we trouble to get the boats into
the water and fatigue the men by a long pull in this sweltering heat?
That ship can't get away from us without wind; and if I am any judge of
the looks of a vessel we shall walk up to her as if she were at anchor
as soon as the breeze comes. She is a good seven miles away, a pull of
an hour and a half at the least in this weather, and at the end of it
the men would be too tired to face resistance effectively, if it were
offered--as it very possibly might be. No, I really do not see any
necessity to dispatch the boats, just yet at least; do you?"
"Well, 'pon my word, Mr Delamere, I don't know," answered Pearce,
scratching his head with a puzzled air. "The way you puts it there
don't seem to be no sense at all in doin' of it. And yet, I don't know,
sir. The fact is, I'm a bit puzzled about that there ship. Here are
we, regularly boxin' the compass, our jibboom pointin' first this way,
then that, and then t'other, while that ship haven't veered nothin' to
speak of all the time that I've been on deck; she've pointed steady to
the south'ard ever since I first set eyes on her, and it seems to me
that she've altered her bearin's a bit. I suppose it ain't likely that
she've got her boats into the water, towin' on t'other side of her, have
she?"
"Good gracious, man, no, surely not!" I ejaculated. "What in the world
should they do such a mad thing as that for? What effect would two, or
even three, boats have on a big heavy ship like that? They could never
hope to tow her below the horizon and out of sight of us before the wind
comes; and, if not, why should they tire themselves to death by making
such an attempt? I admit that it is rather strange that her head should
point so steadily in one direction while we are boxing the compass; but
she probably draws twice as much water as we do, and that may have
something to do with it."
I took the telescope from Pearce's hands and again levelled it at the
stranger. She was still lying broadside-on to us, showing us her port
side, and her yards were braced sharp up on the starboard tack, as
though--assuming her to have come in through one of the passages--she
had had a wind from the westward, while the breeze which had brought us
where we were had been from the eastward. The peculiarity of this now
struck me for the first time, but it carried no particular significance
to my mind beyond the suggestion that possibly she might, after all, be
homeward instead of outward bound. But as I stood scanning her through
the lenses it gradually dawned upon me that her people seemed to be
extraordinarily busy, for I could detect indications that quite a large
number of men were actively moving about her decks; and presently, to my
astonishment, I noticed that she had a tackle at her mainyard-arm; and
while I was still wondering what this might be for, I saw a large case
rise slowly above the level of her bulwark and then vanish again,
apparently over her rail.
Then, in a second, illumination came to me and I understood everything.
There was a craft of some sort alongside her, completely hidden from our
view by her hull and canvas, braced as sharp up as possible, and
undoubtedly there were boats in the water on the other side of her,
employed to keep her broadside-on to us and thus keep the other craft
hidden from us; moreover, certain portions of her cargo were being
hoisted out and transferred to the hidden vessel. The inference was
obvious: the hidden craft was a pirate which had somehow managed to
sneak up alongside and surprise her in the pitchy darkness of the early
hours of the morning--Henderson had actually caught a glimpse of the
very act of capture--and now she was being plundered by the audacious
scoundrels under our very eyes.
I laid down the glass and looked sharply round the horizon. The
atmosphere was distinctly thickening, to such an extent, indeed, that
the sun was now almost blotted out, and there was a greasy look about
the sky that seemed to portend bad weather. The sea was still
glass-smooth, not the faintest suggestion of a catspaw to be seen in any
direction; but there was a certain gloomy, lowering appearance over the
western horizon that appeared to promise a breeze before long. It might
be hours, however, before it came, and we could not wait for it; for
robbery, and very possibly violence, ay, even cold-blooded murder, was
being perpetrated at that moment, and speedy intervention was
imperative. I felt horribly vexed that we should all have allowed
ourselves to be hoodwinked so completely; for although the device was
undoubtedly quite clever, the conviction would insist upon forcing
itself upon me that I had attached altogether too little importance to
the gunner's story of those mysterious flashes, seen "out of the corner
of his eye." I told myself that that story ought to have aroused my
suspicions, ought to have conveyed a distinct suggestion to my mind; and
that, if it had, we should have detected the ruse almost with the first
appearance of daylight. This, however, was not the moment for
reproaches, either of myself or others, it was the moment for action;
and I turned sharply upon the boatswain.
"Mr Pearce," I said, "on the starboard side of that ship there is
another craft, completely hidden from us by the hull and canvas of the
stranger, and cargo is being hoisted out of the one and transferred to
the other. That means that an act of piracy is being perpetrated; and
we have been commissioned for the express purpose of suppressing piracy.
It is as likely as not that the hidden craft is the identical vessel
that we have been sent out to capture, but in any case our duty is
clear; we must get up within striking distance and interfere without a
moment's loss of time. Now, the question in my mind is this: Should we
man and arm boats, and send them away; or should we rig out our sweeps
and attempt to sweep the schooner up to the scene of action? Under
ordinary circumstances I should be for dispatching the boats; but I
don't quite know what to make of the weather. There is no sign of a
breeze in any direction at the present moment, but that lowering
appearance away to the westward may mean wind; and if it does, it may
come down very strong. Should it do so, it would bother the boats, and
enable the pirates to slip away; on the other hand, the wind may not
come away for several hours yet. This is one of those occasions when
experience is valuable, and I shall be glad to have your opinion as to
which plan is the better."
Pearce, meanwhile, had been peering through the glass again; but when I
finished speaking he laid it down and turned to me.
"'Pon my word, Mr Delamere, it's very difficult to say," he answered.
"While you've been talkin' I've been lookin' at that ship away yonder,
and I believe, sir, as you're right about there bein' another craft
alongside of her, although they've so managed things that they might ha'
stayed all day as they are without our bein' any the wiser, if we hadn't
kept on watchin' 'em. Yes; it's a hact of piracy, right enough, I
haven't a doubt; and, as you says--what's the best thing to be done?"
He paused and gazed earnestly toward the increasing appearance of
thickness and greasiness in the western quarter, carefully studying its
aspect for a full minute or more; then he turned to me again.
"I don't like the look of it at all, Mr Delamere," he said. "There's
bad weather brewin' yonder--I'm sure of it--but how long it'll be before
it comes no man can say; it may be hours, or it may be on us within the
next half-hour or so. What does the barometer say?"
We both stepped to the open skylight and peered down through it at the
barometer, which hung in gimbals from the fore transom. The mercury was
falling rather rapidly.
"Yes," Pearce continued, "I don't like the look of it, sir, and I
shouldn't like to take the responsibility of advisin' of you to send the
boats away. For, ye see, Mr--"
"Yes," I interrupted, cutting ruthlessly in upon the man's speech, "I
see quite clearly, boatswain, that you and I are of one mind upon that
point, therefore there is no need to discuss it further, and we will at
once proceed to action. Call all hands if you please, Mr Pearce."
The next moment the shrill chirruping of Pearce's pipe and his gruff
bellow of "All hands ahoy!" resounded throughout the little vessel, and
our decks at once became a scene of animation. The galley fire was
extinguished, although the cook was by this time busy upon the
preparation of the men's dinner; screens were fastened up round the
hatchways, the magazine was opened, powder and shot were passed up on
deck, and the guns were cast loose and loaded, the men dancing about the
decks with the glee and activity of schoolboys preparing for a day's
amusement. Then, as soon as we were all ready for action, the heavy
sweeps were rigged out, four men to each sweep, and the schooner's bows
were pointed straight for the stranger. To overcome the inertia of the
little vessel, and get way upon her, was laborious work, and the men,
stripped to their waists, were soon streaming with perspiration; but
after the first five minutes' toil, during which we worked up a speed of
about three knots, it proved a comparatively easy matter to keep her
going.
It soon became evident that a keen watch upon our movements was being
maintained by the pirates; for no sooner had it been made apparent that
we intended to close with the strangers than all attempts at further
concealment were abandoned, the ship's courses were clewed up, her yards
were squared; to facilitate the hoisting out of cargo, additional
tackles were got aloft, and all the signs of greatly increased activity
on board her at once became manifest. It now also became apparent that
some means had been resorted to for the purpose of keeping her broadside
presented to us and her hull interposed between us and the pirate
vessel, and that these means had now been abandoned as of no further
avail; for within the next ten minutes she swung stem-on to us, and we
saw that there was indeed another craft alongside her--a slashing big
topsail schooner, immensely beamy, with all her canvas clewed up and
furled, and her decks cumbered with bales and packages of all sizes and
descriptions, which were being hoisted out of the big ship's hold and
lowered over the side with feverish activity. As the two craft swung
round, revealing the presence of the second vessel, our lads gave a
cheer of delight and exultation, and applied themselves with such fierce
energy to the toil of working the heavy sweeps that they churned the
glassy surface of the ocean into a long double row of miniature
whirlpools, that went swirling and frothing away from the blades of the
sweeps into the wake of the schooner, to the distance of a full quarter
of a mile.
Fortunately, however, they were not compelled to toil very long at this
exhausting labour; for when we had progressed about a mile a few
catspaws came stealing along the surface of the water from the westward,
while a dark line gradually extended along the western horizon and
advanced steadily in our direction, the catspaws meanwhile multiplying
and spreading until, within a quarter of an hour of their first
appearance, the sails of the strange ship were wrinkling and flapping to
quite a pleasant little breeze. The moment that this happened the
pirate schooner cast off and made sail with the rapidity and precision
of a man-o'-war, thus demonstrating that she was manned by an
exceptionally strong and efficient crew. As soon as she was clear of
the ship she was brought to the wind, under an enormous spread of
exquisitely cut canvas, and away she went, close-hauled on the port
tack, heading to the northward at a pace which made us gape with
astonishment; while the ship, with squared yards, gathered stern-way and
first fell broadside-on to us, then gradually paid off until she was
before the wind, when down she came driving toward us, yawing so broadly
to port and starboard that it was easy to see she had nobody at her
helm, which seemed to point pretty clearly toward the presumption of
tragedy. A quarter of an hour later the catspaws were ruffling the
surface of the water here and there all round us, and stirring our
canvas at rapidly decreasing intervals, with the true breeze coming fast
and close behind them; we, therefore, laid in our sweeps, put the helm
up, trimmed our sheets on the port tack, took a long pull and a strong
pull upon the halliards all round, and paid off just in time to receive
the first of the true breeze into the hollows of our canvas, when,
heeling over to the extent of a strake or so, away we too went, with a
merry buzzing and seething of water under our bows and along our bends.