Master, let me take you a button hole lower; do you not see, Pompey
is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lose your
reputation.
LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST.
The rising sun the next day beheld the good ship Albatross, under the
impulse of a very gentle breeze, gliding towards the west; the Andes,
over which the sun was darting his levelled beams, were distinctly
visible. The flapping of the topsails against their masts, the pattering
of the reef-points, and the smoothness of the water, indicated an
approaching calm.
"Go aloft, one of you," said Morton, who was the officer of the morning
watch, "go aloft, and see if you can make out any sail astern of us
under the land."
The seaman who obeyed this order, after _roosting_ for fifteen or twenty
minutes on the main royal yard, came down and reported that he could see
nothing; but that the sun shone so brightly on the water that, if any
thing was within the range of sight, the reflection of the sunbeams
would render it invisible. Morton could not repress a vague
apprehension that there was some vessel in chace, though it would have
sorely puzzled him to give his whys and wherefores. After having pointed
his glass for the fiftieth time towards the eastern horizon, without
seeing any thing but smooth water and the dim, blue, cloudy-looking
mountains, the man at the wheel notified him that it was "eight bells,"
or eight o'clock. Having gone below to compare the watch in the cabin
with the half-hour glass in the binnacle, he returned to the
quarter-deck and called out,
"Strike the bell eight--call the watch."
The bell was struck, and one of the watch on deck, after a preliminary
thumping with the large end of a handspike upon the forecastle,
vociferated down the fore scuttle,
"All the starboard watch, ahoy! Rouse out there, starbowlines--show a
leg or an arm!"
This last phrase designates the manner in which "turning out" of a
hammock is accomplished, which hammock, a person unacquainted with such
kind of sleeping accommodations, would never dream contained a live man,
until one or the other of the aforementioned limbs was protruded. In a
few minutes the wheel was relieved, and the crew were clustering around
the galley with their tin pots, joking, and laughing, and shouting
"scaldings!" as they hurried forward with their respective allowances of
hot coffee.
In the mean time the quarter-deck received an accession of company. Mr.
Walker came up the companion-way, gaping and rubbing his eyes, and
carrying his jacket on his arm. With a short "good morning!" to Morton
he threw his jacket upon the hen-coop, proceeded to the lee gangway,
drew a bucket of water, and commenced his morning's ablutions. Captain
Williams next came on deck, and immediately looked round upon the
weather with a troubled and disappointed air, for it was now almost
quite a calm. Mr. Edwards and Dr. Bolton followed him--not that they had
any business on deck, or cared much about leaving the cabin or their
respective state-rooms oftener than was necessary; but it is not, or was
not, in my sea-going days, esteemed genteel for passengers, or any other
"idlers," to stay below while the steward was occupied with the mystery
of arranging the breakfast-table. Lastly, and to the surprise of the
whole company, Isabella, as lovely as the morning, and dressed in the
proper habiliments of her sex, ascended the companion-ladder. She was
greeted with paternal affection by the veteran commander, and with
sparkling eyes and a silent pressure of the hand by Morton. She received
and replied to their congratulations and compliments with crimsoned
cheeks and downcast eyes. The supercargo and doctor, who had, with most
commendable delicacy, kept out of the way the night before, were now
introduced, and after a few minutes of general conversation, the
steward informed Captain Williams that breakfast was ready.
The whole party, with the exception of Mr. Walker, who was now in his
turn "officer of the deck," accordingly descended to the cabin, where
they found the table covered with coffee and tea, _minus_ milk; cold
salt beef, cut into slices, of a thickness that would horrify a whole
community of fashionable ladies and gentlemen, allowing that so
exceedingly vulgar an article of "provent" as salt beef did not
previously throw them into hysterics as soon as presented to their eyes,
but which slices seemed to have been cut with the prospective intention
of filling up that vacuum that Nature, as far as I am acquainted with
her, seems to abhor more cordially than any other vacuum whatever; that
void space, I mean, that is apt to be found in a healthy human stomach
after a twelve-hour's fast. There was also a broiled chicken for the
express use and behoof of their fair messmate; fried pork and potatoes;
a large dish of fried fish, the produce of a fishing excursion the
afternoon preceding; another of boiled eggs; a third composed of
pilot-bread, soaked in hot water, toasted, and buttered; biscuit,
butter, and cheese.
Breakfast proceeded much as sea breakfasts generally do--that is to say,
the company ate heartily: even Isabella, who had sufficient excuse for
low spirits and want of appetite, yielded to the demands of hunger the
most unromantic, and, in vulgar language, "spoilt the looks" of the
broiled fowl before her. The meal was drawing to a close, when the
steward came below with information, that Mr. Walker had seen, from the
main topmast head, with his glass, a square-rigged vessel right astern,
and coming up with a fresh breeze. Captain Williams and Morton exchanged
looks of intelligence, but said nothing; their fair passenger,
fortunately, understood not a word of the steward's intelligence; and
the merchant and doctor were of that happy and enviable description of
men, who, when they sit down to a well-furnished table, seem to adopt,
with a slight variation, the sentiment of the poet,
"Far from my thoughts, vain world, begone,
And let my '_eating_' hours alone,"
The two seamen, however anxious they might feel, finished their
breakfast very composedly, and went on deck without hurry; Morton
recommending to his fair deliverer to remain below for some time. In
half an hour the chace was distinctly visible from the quarter-deck, and
from the peculiar darkness of the water in that direction, it was
evident that she had a good breeze. It was then that conjectures as to
the character of the stranger were numerous, wild, and contradictory; no
one thought for an instant that it was the Venganza, because they had
seen her the day before with her fore-yard down and sent on shore--the
idea that there might possibly be found a spare spar in the dock-yard
that would answer _pro tem_. never, for an instant, presenting itself
to their minds. A few minutes more, however, convinced them that it was
indeed that "terrible ship with a terrible name;" and orders were
immediately given to prepare for action as silently as possible. These
orders were obeyed with joyous alacrity. A feeling of romantic gratitude
to their lovely passenger was accompanied by a most chivalrous
determination to "do or die" in her defence, and these sentiments
pervaded the whole ship's company. Added to this exciting cause was that
natural propensity to strife that Flora Mac Ivor says all men feel when
placed in opposition to each other, or, as Titus Livius Patavinus hath
it, they were "suopte ingenio feroces."
The clews of the topsails were lashed to the lower yard-arms; the
topsail-yards slung with iron chains; round, grape, and cannister shot
got up from the hold; the boarding-pikes taken down from the racks and
laid at hand; the arm-chests unlocked, and their murderous contents of
muskets, bayonets, pistols, cutlasses, and tomahawks or pole-axes
produced; powder-horns and flasks, for priming the guns, filled and
placed in readiness; rammers, sponges, and priming-wires distributed to
the guns; preventer braces rove, and stoppers for the rigging sent up
into the tops, or placed in different parts of the deck. The carpenter
got ready his shot-plugs and top-maul; the armorer examined the locks of
the fire-arms; the gunner paraded his wads, and opened the magazine
beneath the cabin floor. Morton, to whom Captain Williams had deputed
the charge of the two females, descended to the steerage, attended by
two or three seamen, and hauled all the spare sails out of the
sail-room, with which he formed a small hollow coil in the cable tier.
These sails, being formed into long hard rolls and placed upon the
cables, formed a rampart that, from its non-elasticity, would more
effectually check the progress of a round shot than a greater thickness
of oak plank.
Having finished the castle, he could not forbear passing into the cabin
to see its future occupant. Isabella received him with a blush and a
smile.
"What is the meaning of all this noise and bustle overhead?" said she.
"There is a strange ship in sight," said Morton, after a pause, "and we
are almost sure that she has hostile intentions towards us." Isabella
became pale as marble. "It is, in short, the man-of-war that was in St.
Blas when we left there."
"Good God!" said the young lady, clasping her hands in agony, "what will
become of us?"
"Do not allow yourself to be overcome with causeless alarm; we shall, if
possible, run away; but if not, we must resort to certain arguments to
convince her commander and crew of the impropriety and rudeness of their
interfering in an affair that does not concern them."
"But if we are taken, what will become of you?"
"I suspect, dearest Isabella, that you will search in vain through the
Albatross to find a single person, man or boy, that is prepared to
admit the probability, nay, even the possibility, of such a conclusion.
We are nominally inferior, but in reality superior, to our antagonist.
In the mean time, I have been preparing a place of safety for you and
Transita, where it is next to impossible that you should be in the way
of danger."
"But you," said she, looking at him with tearful eyes.
"My life, my sweet girl, is in the hands of Him that gave it; and to His
watchful care and boundless goodness I cheerfully and confidingly commit
it."
"But if you are taken--such a thing is at least possible."
"Such an event is, as you say, possible. In that case, your Mexican
friends must be content to work their revenge upon my dead body, for I
am determined that the living Charles Morton shall never become an
object for Spanish vengeance to exhaust its ingenuity upon. But I must
leave you for the present. I will come below again in a few minutes, to
conduct you to your citadel."