“Furious press the hostile squadron,
Furious he repels their rage.
Loss of blood at length enfeebles;
Who can war with thousands wage?”
_Spanish War Song._
We cannot detain the narrative to detail the scenes which busy wonder,
aided by the relation of divers marvelous feats, produced among the
curious seamen who remained in the ship, and their more fortunate
fellows who had returned in glory from an expedition to the land. For
nearly an hour the turbulence of a general movement was heard, issuing
from the deep recesses of the frigate, and the boisterous sounds of
hoarse merriment were listened to by the officers in indulgent silence;
but all these symptoms of unbridled humor ceased by the time the morning
repast was ended, when the regular sea-watch was set, and the greater
portion of those whose duty did not require their presence on the
vessel's deck, availed themselves of the opportunity to repair the loss
of sleep sustained in the preceding night. Still no preparations were
made to put the ship in motion, though long and earnest consultations,
which were supposed to relate to their future destiny, were observed
by the younger officers to be held between their captain, the first
lieutenant, and the mysterious Pilot. The latter threw many an anxious
glance along the eastern horizon, searching it minutely with his glass,
and then would turn his impatient looks at the low, dense bank of fog,
which, stretching across the ocean like a barrier of cloud, entirely
intercepted the view towards the south. To the north and along the land
the air was clear, and the sea without a spot of any kind; but in the
east a small white sail had been discovered since the opening of day,
which was gradually rising above the water, and assuming the appearance
of a vessel of some size. Every officer on the quarter-deck in his
turn had examined this distant sail, and had ventured an opinion on its
destination and character; and even Katherine, who with her cousin was
enjoying, in the open air, the novel beauties of the ocean, had been
tempted to place her sparkling eye to a glass, to gaze at the stranger.
“It is a collier,” Griffith said, “who has hauled from the land in the
late gale, and who is luffing up to his course again. If the wind holds
here in the south, and he does not get into that fog-bank, we can stand
off for him and get a supply of fuel before eight bells are struck.”
“I think his head is to the northward, and that he is steering off the
wind,” returned the Pilot, in a musing manner, “If that Dillon succeeded
in getting his express far enough along the coast, the alarm has been
spread, and we must be wary. The convoy of the Baltic trade is in the
North Sea, and news of our presence could easily have been taken off to
it by some of the cutters that line the coast, I could wish to get the
ship as far south as the Helder!”
“Then we lose this weather tide!” exclaimed the impatient Griffith;
“surely we have the cutter as a lookout! besides, by beating into the
fog, we shall lose the enemy, if enemy it be, and it is thought meet for
an American frigate to skulk from her foes!”
The scornful expression that kindled the eye of the Pilot, like a gleam
of sunshine lighting for an instant some dark dell and laying bare its
secrets, was soon lost in the usually quiet look of his glance, though
he hesitated like one who was struggling with his passions before he
answered:
“If prudence and the service of the States require it, even this proud
frigate must retreat and hide from the meanest of her enemies. My
advice, Captain Munson, is, that you make sail, and beat the ship to
windward, as Mr. Griffith has suggested, and that you order the cutter
to precede us, keeping more in with the land.”
The aged seaman, who evidently suspended his orders only to receive an
intimation of the other's pleasure, immediately commanded his youthful
assistant to issue the necessary mandates to put these measures in
force. Accordingly, the Alacrity, which vessel had been left under the
command of the junior lieutenant of the frigate, was quickly under way;
and, making short stretches to windward, she soon entered the bank of
fog, and was lost to the eye. In the mean time the canvas of the ship
was loosened, and spread leisurely, in order not to disturb the portion
of the crew who were sleeping; and, following her little consort, she
moved heavily through the water, bearing up against the dull breeze.
The quiet of regular duty had succeeded to the bustle of making sail;
and, as the rays of the sun fell less obliquely on the distant land,
Katherine and Cecilia were amusing Griffith by vain attempts to point
out the rounded eminences which they fancied lay in the vicinity of the
deserted mansion of St. Ruth. Barnstable, who had resumed his former
station in the frigate as her second lieutenant, was pacing the opposite
side of the quarter-deck, holding under his arm the speaking-trumpet,
which denoted that he held the temporary control of the motions of the
ship, and inwardly cursing the restraint that kept him from the side of
his mistress. At this moment of universal quiet, when nothing above
low dialogues interrupted the dashing of the waves as they were thrown
lazily aside by the bows of the vessel, the report of a light cannon
burst out of the barrier of fog, and rolled by them on the breeze,
apparently vibrating with the rising and sinking of the waters.
“There goes the cutter!” exclaimed Griffith, the instant the sound was
heard.
“Surely,” said the captain, “Somers is not so indiscreet as to scale his
guns, after the caution he has received!”
“No idle scaling of guns is intended there,” said the Pilot, straining
his eyes to pierce the fog, but soon turning away in disappointment at
his inability to succeed--“that gun is shotted, and has been fired
in the hurry of a sudden signal!--can your lookouts see nothing, Mr.
Barnstable?”
The lieutenant of the watch hailed the man aloft, and demanded if
anything were visible in the direction of the wind, and received for
answer that the fog intercepted the view in that quarter of the heavens,
but that the sail in the east was a ship, running large, or before the
wind. The Pilot shook his head doubtingly at this information, but still
he manifested a strong reluctance to relinquish the attempt of getting
more to the southward. Again he communed with the commander of the
frigate, apart from all other ears; and while they yet deliberated, a
second report was heard, leaving no doubt that the Alacrity was firing
signal-guns for their particular attention.
“Perhaps,” said Griffith, “he wishes to point out his position, or to
ascertain ours; believing that we are lost like himself in the mist”
“We have our compasses!” returned the doubting captain; “Somers has a
meaning in what he says!”
“See!” cried Katherine, with girlish delight, “see, my cousin! see,
Barnstable! how beautifully that vapor is wreathing itself in clouds
above the smoky line of fog! It stretches already into the very heavens
like a lofty pyramid!”
Barnstable sprang lightly on a gun, as he repeated her words:
“Pyramids of fog! and wreathing clouds! By heaven!” he shouted, “'tis
a tall ship! Royals, skysails, and stud-dingsails all abroad! She is
within a mile of us, and comes down like a racehorse, with a spanking
breeze, dead before it! Now know we why Somers is speaking in the mist!”
“Ay,” cried Griffith, “and there goes the Alacrity, just breaking out of
the fog, hovering in for the land!”
“There is a mighty hull under all that cloud of canvas, Captain Munson,”
said the observant but calm Pilot: “it is time, gentlemen, to edge away
to leeward.”
“What, before we know from whom we run!” cried Griffith; “my life on
it, there is no single ship King George owns but would tire of the sport
before she had played a full game of bowls with--”
The haughty air of the young man was daunted by the severe look he
encountered in the eye of the Pilot, and he suddenly ceased, though
inwardly chafing with impatient pride.
“The same eye that detected the canvas above the fog might have seen the
flag of a vice-admiral fluttering still nearer the heavens,” returned
the collected stranger; “and England, faulty as she may be, is yet too
generous to place a flag-officer in time of war in command of a frigate,
or a captain in command of a fleet. She knows the value of those who
shed their blood in her behalf, and it is thus that she is so well
served! Believe me, Captain Munson, there is nothing short of a ship of
the line under that symbol of rank and that broad show of canvas!”
“We shall see, sir, we shall see,” returned the old officer, whose
manner grew decided, as the danger appeared to thicken; “beat to
quarters, Mr. Griffith, for we have none but enemies to expect on this
coast”
The order was instantly issued, when Griffith remarked, with a more
temperate zeal:
“If Mr. Gray be right, we shall have reason to thank God that we are so
light of heel!”
The cry of “a strange vessel close aboard the frigate” having already
flown down the hatches, the ship was in an uproar at the first tap of
the drum. The seamen threw themselves from their hammocks, and lashing
them rapidly into long, hard bundles, they rushed to the decks, where
they were dexterously stowed in the netting, to aid the defences of the
upper part of the vessel. While this tumultuous scene was exhibiting,
Griffith gave a secret order to Merry, who disappeared, leading his
trembling cousins to a place of safety in the inmost depths of the ship.
The guns were cleared of their lumber and loosened. The bulkheads were
knocked down, and the cabin relieved of its furniture; and the gun-deck
exhibited one unbroken line of formidable cannon, arranged in all the
order of a naval battery ready to engage. Arm-chests were thrown open,
and the decks strewed with pikes, cutlasses, pistols, and all the
various weapons for boarding. In short, the yards were slung, and every
other arrangement was made with a readiness and dexterity that were
actually wonderful, though all was performed amid an appearance of
disorder and confusion that rendered the ship another Babel during the
continuance of the preparations. In a very few minutes everything was
completed, and even the voices of the men ceased to be heard answering
to their names, as they were mustered at their stations, by their
respective officers. Gradually the ship became as quiet as the grave;
and when even Griffith or his commander found it necessary to speak,
their voices were calmer, and their tones more mild than usual. The
course of the vessel was changed to an oblique line from that in which
their enemy was approaching, though the appearance of flight was to be
studiously avoided to the last moment. When nothing further remained to
be done, every eye became fixed on the enormous pile of swelling canvas
that was rising, in cloud over cloud, far above the fog, and which was
manifestly moving, like driving vapor, swiftly to the north. Presently
the dull, smoky boundary of the mist which rested on the water was
pushed aside in vast volumes, and the long taper spars that projected
from the bowsprit of the strange ship issued from the obscurity, and
were quickly followed by the whole of the enormous fabric to which they
were merely light appendages. For a moment, streaks of reluctant vapor
clung to the huge floating pile; but they were soon shaken off by the
rapid vessel, and the whole of her black hull became distinct to the
eye.
“One, two, three rows of teeth!” said Boltrope, deliberately counting
the tiers of guns that bristled along the sides of the enemy; “a
three-decker! Jack Manly would show his stern to such a fellow! and
even the bloody Scotchman would run!”
“Hard up with your helm, quartermaster!” cried Captain Munson; “there
is indeed no time to hesitate, with such an enemy within a quarter of
a mile! Turn the hands up, Mr. Griffith, and pack on the ship from her
trucks to her lower studdingsail-booms. Be stirring, sir, be stirring!
Hard up with your helm! Hard up, and be damn'd to you!”
The unusual earnestness of their aged commander acted on the startled
crew like a voice from the deep, and they waited not for the usual
signals of the boatswain and drummer to be given, before they broke away
from their guns, and rushed tumultuously to aid in spreading the
desired canvas. There was one minute of ominous confusion, that to an
inexperienced eye would have foreboded the destruction of all order in
the vessel, during which every hand, and each tongue, seemed in motion;
but it ended in opening the immense folds of light duck which were
displayed along the whole line of the masts, far beyond the ordinary
sails, overshadowing the waters for a great distance, on either side
of the vessel. During the moment of inaction that succeeded this sudden
exertion, the breeze, which had brought up the three-decker, fell
fresher on the sails of the frigate, and she started away from her
dangerous enemy with a very perceptible advantage in point of sailing.
“The fog rises!” cried Griffith; “give us but the wind for an hour, and
we shall run her out of gunshot!”
“These nineties are very fast off the wind,” returned the captain, in
a low tone, that was intended only for the ears of his first lieutenant
and the Pilot; “and we shall have a struggle for it.”
The quick eye of the stranger was glancing over the movements of his
enemy, while he answered:
“He finds we have the heels of him already! he is making ready, and
we shall be fortunate to escape a broadside! Let her yaw a little, Mr.
Griffith; touch her lightly with the helm; if we are raked, sir, we are
lost!”
The captain sprang on the taffrail of his ship with the activity of a
younger man, and in an instant he perceived the truth of the other's
conjecture.
Both vessels now ran for a few minutes, keenly watching each other's
motions like two skilful combatants; the English ship making slight
deviations from the line of her course, and then, as her movements
were anticipated by the other, turning as cautiously in the opposite
direction, until a sudden and wide sweep of her huge bows told the
Americans plainly on which tack to expect her. Captain Munson made a
silent but impressive gesture with his arm, as if the crisis were too
important for speech, which indicated to the watchful Griffith the way
he wished the frigate sheered, to avoid the weight of the impending
danger. Both vessels whirled swiftly up to the wind, with their heads
towards the land; and as the huge black side of the three-decker,
checkered with its triple batteries, frowned full upon her foe, it
belched forth a flood of fire and smoke, accompanied by a bellowing roar
that mocked the surly moanings of the sleeping ocean. The nerves of the
bravest man in the frigate contracted their fibres, as the hurricane of
iron hurtled by them, and each eye appeared to gaze in stupid wonder, as
if tracing the flight of the swift engines of destruction. But the voice
of Captain Munson was heard in the din, shouting while he waved his hat
earnestly in the required direction:
“Meet her! meet her with the helm, boy! meet her, Mr. Griffith, meet
her!”
Griffith had so far anticipated this movement as to have already ordered
the head of the frigate to be turned in its former course, when, struck
by the unearthly cry of the last tones uttered by his commander, he bent
his head, and beheld the venerable seaman driven through the air, his
hat still waving, his gray hair floating in the wind, and his eye set in
the wild look of death.
“Great God!” exclaimed the young man, rushing to the side of the ship,
where he was just in time to see the lifeless body disappear in the
waters that were dyed in its blood; “he has been struck by a shot! Lower
away the boat, lower away the jolly-boat, the barge, the tiger, the----”
“'Tis useless,” interrupted the calm, deep voice of the Pilot; “he has
met a warrior's end, and he sleeps in a sailor's grave! The ship is
getting before the wind again, and the enemy is keeping his vessel
away.”
The youthful lieutenant was recalled by these words to his duty, and
reluctantly turned his eyes away from the bloody spot on the waters,
which the busy frigate had already passed, to resume the command of the
vessel with a forced composure.
“He has cut some of our running-gear,” said the master, whose eye had
never ceased to dwell on the spars and rigging of the ship; “and there's
a splinter out of the maintopmast that is big enough for a fid! He
has let daylight through some of our canvas too; but, taking it
by-and-large, the squall has gone over and little harm done. Didn't I
hear something said of Captain Munson getting jammed by a shot?”
“He is killed!” said Griffith, speaking in a voice that was yet husky
with horror--“he is dead, sir, and carried overboard; there is more need
that we forget not ourselves, in this crisis.”
“Dead!” said Boltrope, suspending the operation of his active jaws for a
moment, in surprise; “and buried in a wet jacket! Well, it is lucky 'tis
no worse; for damme if I did not think every stick in the ship would
have been cut out of her!”
With this consolatory remark on his lips, the master walked slowly
forward, continuing his orders to repair the damages with a singleness
of purpose that rendered him, however uncouth as a friend, an invaluable
man in his station.
Griffith had not yet brought his mind to the calmness that was so
essential to discharge the duties which had thus suddenly and awfully
devolved on him, when his elbow was lightly touched by the Pilot, who
had drawn closer to his side.
“The enemy appear satisfied with the experiment,” said the stranger;
“and as we work the quicker of the two, he loses too much ground to
repeat it, if he be a true seaman.”
“And yet as he finds we leave him so fast,” returned Griffith, “he must
see that all his hopes rest in cutting us up aloft. I dread that he will
come by the wind again, and lay us under his broadside; we should need a
quarter of an hour to run without his range, if he were anchored!”
“He plays a surer game--see you not that the vessel we made in the
eastern board shows the hull of a frigate? 'Tis past a doubt that they
are of one squadron, and that the expresses have sent them in our wake.
The English admiral has spread a broad clew, Mr. Griffith; and, as he
gathers in his ships, he sees that his game has been successful.”
The faculties of Griffith had been too much occupied with the hurry of
the chase to look at the ocean; but, startled at the information of the
Pilot, who spoke coolly, though like a man sensible of the existence of
approaching danger, he took the glass from the other, and with his own
eye examined the different vessels in sight. It is certain that the
experienced officer, whose flag was flying above the light sails of the
three-decker, saw the critical situation of his chase, and reasoned much
in the same manner as the Pilot, or the fearful expedient apprehended
by Griffith would have been adopted. Prudence, however, dictated that
he should prevent his enemy from escaping by pressing so closely on his
rear as to render it impossible for the American to haul across his bows
and run into the open sea between his own vessel and the nearest frigate
of his squadron. The unpractised reader will be able to comprehend the
case better by accompanying the understanding eye of Griffith, as it
glanced from point to point, following the whole horizon. To the west
lay the land, along which the Alacrity was urging her way industriously,
with the double purpose of keeping her consort abeam, and of avoiding
a dangerous proximity to their powerful enemy. To the east, bearing off
the starboard bow of the American frigate, was the vessel first seen,
and which now began to exhibit the hostile appearance of a ship of war,
steering in a line converging towards themselves, and rapidly drawing
nigher; while far in the northeast was a vessel as yet faintly
discerned, whose evolutions could not be mistaken by one who understood
the movements of nautical warfare.
“We are hemmed in effectually,” said Griffith, dropping the glass from
his eye; “and I know not but our wisest course would be to haul in to
the land, and, cutting everything light adrift, endeavor to pass the
broadside of the flag-ship.”
“Provided she left a rag of canvas to do it with!” returned the Pilot.
“Sir, 'tis an idle hope! She would strip your ship in ten minutes, to
her plankshears. Had it not been for a lucky wave on which so many of
her shot struck and glanced upwards, we should have nothing to boast of
left from the fire she has already given; we must stand on, and drop the
three-decker as far as possible.”
“But the frigates?” said Griffith, “What are we to do with the
frigates?”
“Fight them!” returned the Pilot, in a low determined voice; “fight
them! Young man, I have borne the stars and stripes aloft in greater
straits than this, and even with honor! Think not that my fortune will
desert me now.”
“We shall have an hour of desperate battle!”
“On that we may calculate; but I have lived through whole days of
bloodshed! You seem not one to quail at the sight of an enemy.”
“Let me proclaim your name to the men!” said Griffith; “'twill quicken
their blood, and at such a moment be a host in itself.”
“They want it not,” returned the Pilot, checking the hasty zeal of the
other with his hand. “I would be unnoticed, unless I am known as becomes
me. I will share your Danger, but would not rob you of a tittle of
your glory. Should we come to grapple,” he continued, while a smile of
conscious pride gleamed across his face, “I will give forth the word as
a war-cry, and, believe me, these English will quail before it!”
Griffith submitted to the stranger's will; and, after they had
deliberated further on the nature of their evolutions, he gave his
attention again to the management of the vessel. The first object which
met his eye on turning from the Pilot was Colonel Howard, pacing the
quarter-deck with a determined brow and a haughty mien, as if already in
the enjoyment of that triumph which now seemed certain.
“I fear, sir,” said the young man, approaching him with respect,
“that you will soon find the deck unpleasant and dangerous; your wards
are----”
“Mention not the unworthy term!” interrupted the colonel. “What greater
pleasure can there be than to inhale the odor of loyalty that is wafted
from yonder floating tower of the king?--And danger! you know but little
of old George Howard, young man, if you think he would for thousands
miss seeing that symbol of rebellion leveled before the flag of his
majesty.”
“If that be your wish, Colonel Howard,” returned Griffith, biting his
lip as he looked around at the wondering seamen who were listeners, “you
will wait in vain; but I pledge you my word that when that time arrives
you shall be advised, and that your own hands shall do the ignoble
deed.”
“Edward Griffith, why not this moment? This is your moment of
probation--submit to the clemency of the crown, and yield your crew to
the royal mercy! In such a case I would remember the child of my brother
Harry's friend; and believe me, my name is known to the ministry. And
you, misguided and ignorant abettors of rebellion! Cast aside your
useless weapons, or prepare to meet the vengeance of yonder powerful and
victorious servant of your prince.”
“Fall back! back with ye, fellows!” cried Griffith, fiercely, to the men
who were gathering around the colonel, with looks of sullen vengeance.
“If a man of you dare approach him, he shall be cast into the sea.”
The sailors retreated at the order of their commander; but the elated
veteran had continued to pace the deck for many minutes before stronger
interests diverted the angry glances of the seamen to other objects.
Notwithstanding the ship of the line was slowly sinking beneath the
distant waves, and in less than an hour from the time she had fired the
broadside, no more than one of her three tiers of guns was visible from
the deck of the frigate, she yet presented an irresistible obstacle
against retreat to the south. On the other hand, the ship first seen
drew so nigh as to render the glass no longer necessary in watching her
movements. She proved to be a frigate, though one so materially lighter
than the American as to have rendered her conquest easy, had not her
two consorts continued to press on for the scene of battle with such
rapidity. During the chase, the scene had shifted from the point
opposite to St. Ruth, to the verge of those shoals where our tale
commenced. As they approached the latter, the smallest of the English
ships drew so nigh as to render the combat unavoidable. Griffith and
his crew had not been idle in the intermediate time, but all the usual
preparations against the casualties of a sea-fight had been duly made,
when the drum once more called the men to their quarters, and the ship
was deliberately stripped of her unnecessary sails, like a prize-fighter
about to enter the arena, casting aside the encumbrances of dress. At
the instant she gave this intimation of her intention to abandon flight,
and trust the issue to the combat, the nearest English frigate also took
in her light canvas in token of her acceptance of the challenge.
“He is but a little fellow,” said Griffith to the Pilot, who hovered at
his elbow with a sort of fatherly interest in the other's conduct of the
battle, “though he carries a stout heart.”
“We must crush him at a blow,” returned the stranger; “not a shot must
be delivered until our yards are locking.”
“I see him training his twelves upon us already; we may soon expect his
fire.”
“After standing the brunt of a ninety-gun ship,” observed the collected
Pilot, “we shall not shrink from the broadside of a two-and-thirty.”
“Stand to your guns, men!” cried Griffith, through his trumpet--“not a
shot is to be fired without the order.”
This caution, so necessary to check the ardor of the seamen, was hardly
uttered, before their enemy became wrapped in sheets of fire and volumes
of smoke, as gun after gun hurled its iron missiles at their vessel
in quick succession. Ten minutes might have passed, the two vessels
sheering close to each other every foot they advanced, during which time
the crew of the American were compelled, by their commander, to suffer
the fire of their adversary, without returning a shot. This short
period, which seemed an age to the seamen, was distinguished in their
vessel by deep silence. Even the wounded and dying, who fell in every
part of the ship, stifled their groans, under the influence of the
severe discipline, which gave a character to every man, and each
movement of the vessel; and those officers who were required to speak
were heard only in the lowest tones of resolute preparation. At length
the ship slowly entered the skirts of the smoke that enveloped their
enemy; and Griffith heard the man who stood at his side whisper the word
“Now.”
“Let them have it!” cried Griffith, in a voice that was heard in the
remotest parts of the ship.
The shout that burst from the seamen appeared to lift the decks of
the vessel, and the affrighted frigate trembled like an aspen with the
recoil of her own massive artillery, that shot forth a single sheet of
flame, the sailors having disregarded, in their impatience, the usual
order of firing. The effect of the broadside on the enemy was still more
dreadful; for a death-like silence succeeded to the roar of the guns,
which was only broken by the shrieks and execrations that burst from
her, like the moanings of the damned. During the few moments in which
the Americans were again loading their cannon, and the English were
recovering from their confusion, the vessel of the former moved slowly
past her antagonist, and was already doubling across her bows, when the
latter was suddenly, and, considering the inequality of their forces,
it may be added desperately, headed into her enemy. The two frigates
grappled. The sudden and furious charge made by the Englishman, as he
threw his masses of daring seamen along his bowsprit, and out of his
channels, had nearly taken Griffith by surprise; but Manual, who had
delivered his first fire with the broadside, now did good service, by
ordering his men to beat back the intruders, by a steady and continued
discharge. Even the wary Pilot lost sight of their other foes, in the
high daring of that moment, and smiles of stern pleasure were exchanged
between him and Griffith as both comprehended, at a glance, their
advantages.
“Lash his bowsprit to our mizzenmast,” shouted the lieutenant, “and we
will sweep his decks as he lies!”
Twenty men sprang eagerly forward to execute the order, among the
foremost of whom were Boltrope and the stranger.
“Ay, now he's our own!” cried the busy master, “and we will take an
owner's liberties with him, and break him up--for by the eternal----”
“Peace, rude man,” said the Pilot, in a voice of solemn remonstrance;
“at the next instant you may face your God; mock not his awful name!”
The master found time, before he threw himself from the spar on the deck
of the frigate again, to cast a look of amazement at his companion, who,
with a steady mien, but with an eye that lighted with a warrior's
ardor, viewed the battle that raged around him, like one who marked its
progress to control the result.
The sight of the Englishmen rushing onward with shouts and bitter
menaces warmed the blood of Colonel Howard, who pressed to the side of
the frigate, and encouraged his friends, by his gestures and voice, to
come on.
“Away with ye, old croaker!” cried the master, seizing him by the
collar; “away with ye to the hold, or I'll order you fired from a gun.”
“Down with your arms, rebellious dog!” shouted the colonel, carried
beyond himself by the ardor of the fray; “down to the dust, and implore
the mercy of your injured prince!”
Invigorated by a momentary glow, the veteran grappled with his brawny
antagonist; but the issue of the short struggle was yet suspended, when
the English, driven back by the fire of the marines, and the menacing
front that Griffith with his boarders presented, retreated to the
forecastle of their own ship, and attempted to return the deadly blows
they were receiving, in their hull, from the cannon that Barnstable
directed. A solitary gun was all they could bring to bear on the
Americans; but this, loaded with cannister, was fired so near as to send
its glaring flame into the very faces of their enemies. The struggling
colonel, who was already sinking beneath the arm of his foe, felt the
rough grasp loosen from his throat at the flash, and the two combatants
sunk powerless on their knees facing each other.
“How, now, brother!” exclaimed Boltrope, with a smile of grim
fierceness; “some of that grist has gone to your mill, ha!”
No answer could, however, be given before the yielding forms of both
fell to the deck, where they lay helpless, amid the din of the battle
and the wild confusion of the eager combatants.
Notwithstanding the furious struggle they witnessed, the elements
did not cease their functions; and, urged by the breeze, and lifted
irresistibly on a wave, the American ship was forced through the water
still further across the bows of her enemy. The idle fastenings of hemp
and iron were snapped asunder like strings of tow, and Griffith saw his
own ship borne away from the Englishman at the instant that the bowsprit
of the latter was torn from its lashings, and tumbled into the sea,
followed by spar after spar, until nothing of all her proud tackling was
remaining, but the few parted and useless ropes that were left dangling
along the stumps of her lower masts. As his own stately vessel moved
from the confusion she had caused, and left the dense cloud of smoke
in which her helpless antagonist lay, the eye of the young man glanced
anxiously toward the horizon, where he now remembered he had more foes
to contend against.
“We have shaken off the thirty-two most happily!” he said to the Pilot,
who followed his motions with singular interest; “but here is another
fellow sheering in for us, who shows as many ports as ourselves, and who
appears inclined for a closer interview; besides, the hull of the ninety
is rising again, and I fear she will be down but too soon!”
“We must keep the use of our braces and sails,” returned the Pilot, “and
on no account close with the other frigate; we must play a double game,
sir, and fight this new adversary with our heels as well as with our
guns.”
“'Tis time then that we were busy, for he is shortening sail, and as he
nears so fast we may expect to hear from him every minute; what do you
propose, sir?”
“Let him gather in his canvas,” returned the Pilot; “and when he thinks
himself snug, we can throw out a hundred men at once upon our yards,
and spread everything alow and aloft; we may then draw ahead of him
by surprise; if we can once get him in our wake, I have no fears of
dropping them all.”
“A stern chase is a long chase,” cried Griffith, “and the thing may do!
Clear up the decks, here, and carry down the wounded; and, as we have
our hands full, the poor fellows who have done with us must go overboard
at once.”
This melancholy duty was instantly attended to, while the young seaman
who commanded the frigate returned to his duty with the absorbed air of
one who felt its high responsibility. These occupations, however, did
not prevent his hearing the sounds of Barnstable's voice calling eagerly
to young Merry. Bending his head towards the sound, Griffith beheld
his friend looking anxiously up the main hatch, with a face grimed with
smoke, his coat off, and his shirt bespattered with human blood. “Tell
me, boy,” he said, “is Mr. Griffith untouched? They say that a shot came
in upon the quarter-deck that tripped up the heels of half a dozen.”
Before Merry could answer, the eyes of Barnstable, which even while he
spoke was scanning the state of the vessel's rigging, encountered
the kind looks of Griffith, and from that moment perfect harmony was
restored between the friends.
“Ah! you are there, Griff, and with a whole skin, I see,” cried
Barnstable, smiling with pleasure; “they have passed poor Boltrope down
into one of his own storerooms! If that fellow's bowsprit had held
on ten minutes longer, what a mark I should have made on his face and
eyes!”
“'Tis perhaps best as it is,” returned Griffith; “but what have you done
with those whom we are most bound to protect?”
Barnstable made a significant gesture towards the depths of the vessel,
as he answered:
“On the cables; safe as wood, iron, and water can keep them--though
Katherine has had her head up three times to----”
A summons from the Pilot drew Griffith away; and the young officers were
compelled to forget their individual feelings, in the pressing duties
of their stations. The ship which the American frigate had now to oppose
was a vessel of near her own size and equipage; and when Griffith looked
at her again, he perceived that she had made her preparations to assert
her equality in manful fight.
Her sails had been gradually reduced to the usual quantity, and,
by certain movements on her decks the lieutenant and his constant
attendant, the Pilot, well understood that she only wanted to lessen her
distance a few hundred yards to begin the action.
“Now spread everything,” whispered the stranger.
Griffith applied the trumpet to his mouth, and shouted in a voice that
was carried even to his enemy: “Let fall-out with your booms--sheet
home--hoist away of everything!”
The inspiring cry was answered by a universal bustle; fifty men flew
out on the dizzy heights of the different spars, while broad sheets
of canvas rose as suddenly along the masts as if some mighty bird were
spreading its wings. The Englishman instantly perceived his mistake, and
he answered the artifice by a roar of artillery. Griffith watched
the effects of the broadside with an absorbing interest, as the shot
whistled above his head; but when he perceived his masts untouched, and
the few unimportant ropes only that were cut, he replied to the uproar
with a burst of pleasure. A few men were, however, seen clinging with
wild frenzy to the cordage, dropping from rope to rope like wounded
birds fluttering through a tree, until they fell heavily into the ocean,
the sullen ship sweeping by them in cold indifference. At the next
instant the spars and masts of their enemy exhibited a display of men
similar to their own, when Griffith again placed the trumpet to his
mouth, and shouted aloud:
“Give it to them; drive them from their yards, boys; scatter them with
your grape--unreeve their rigging!”
The crew of the American wanted but little encouragement to enter on
this experiment with hearty good will, and the close of his cheering
words were uttered amid the deafening roar of his own cannon. The
Pilot had, however, mistaken the skill and readiness of their foe;
for, notwithstanding the disadvantageous circumstances under which the
Englishman increased his sail, the duty was steadily and dexterously
performed.
The two ships were now running rapidly on parallel lines, hurling at
each other their instruments of destruction with furious industry, and
with severe and certain loss to both, though with no manifest advantage
in favor of either. Both Griffith and the Pilot witnessed with deep
concern this unexpected defeat of their hopes; for they could not
conceal from themselves that each moment lessened their velocity through
the water, as the shot of their enemy stripped the canvas from the
yards, or dashed aside the lighter spars in their terrible progress.
“We find our equal here!” said Griffith to the stranger. “The ninety is
heaving up again like a mountain; and if we continue to shorten sail at
this rate, she will soon be down upon us!”
“You say true, sir,” returned the Pilot, musing; “the man shows judgment
as well as spirit: but--”
He was interrupted by Merry, who rushed from the forward part of the
vessel, his whole face betokening the eagerness of his spirit, and the
importance of his intelligence.
“The breakers!” he cried, when nigh enough to be heard amid the din: “we
are running dead on a ripple, and the sea is white not two hundred yards
ahead.”
The Pilot jumped on a gun, and bending to catch a glimpse through the
smoke, he shouted, in those clear, piercing tones that could be even
heard among the roaring of the cannon: “Port, port your helm! we are on
the Devil's Grip! pass up the trumpet, sir; port your helm, fellow;
give it them, boys--give it to the proud English dogs!” Griffith
unhesitatingly relinquished the symbol of his rank, fastening his
own firm look on the calm but quick eye of the Pilot, and gathering
assurance from the high confidence he read in the countenance of the
stranger. The seamen were too busy with their cannon and their rigging
to regard the new danger; and the frigate entered one of the dangerous
passes of the shoals, in the heat of a severely contested battle. The
wondering looks of a few of the older sailors glanced at the sheets of
foam that flew by them, in doubt whether the wild gambols of the waves
were occasioned by the shot of the enemy, when suddenly the noise of
cannon was succeeded by the sullen wash of the disturbed element, and
presently the vessel glided out of her smoky shroud, and was boldly
steering in the centre of the narrow passages. For ten breathless
minutes longer the Pilot continued to hold an uninterrupted sway, during
which the vessel ran swiftly by ripples and breakers, by streaks of foam
and darker passages of deep water, when he threw down his trumpet, and
exclaimed:
“What threatened to be our destruction has proved our salvation! Keep
yonder hill crowned with wood one point open from the church tower at
its base, and steer east by north; you will run through these shoals on
that course in an hour, and by so doing you will gain five leagues of
your enemy, who will have to double their tail.”
The moment he stepped from the gun, the Pilot lost the air of authority
that had so singularly distinguished his animated form, and even the
close interest he had manifested in the incidents of the day became lost
in the cold, settled reserve he had affected during his intercourse with
his present associates. Every officer in the ship, after the breathless
suspense of uncertainly had passed, rushed to those places where a view
might be taken of their enemies. The ninety was still steering bol'ly
onward, and had already approached the two-and-thirty, which lay a
helpless wreck, rolling on the unruly seas that were rudely tossing her
on their wanton billows. The frigate last engaged was running along the
edge of the ripple, with her torn sails flying loosely in the air, her
ragged spars tottering in the breeze, and everything above her hull
exhibiting the confusion of a sudden and unlooked-for check to her
progress. The exulting taunts and mirthful congratulations of the
seamen, as they gazed at the English ships, were, however, soon
forgotten in the attention that was required to their own vessel. The
drums beat the retreat, the guns were lashed, the wounded again removed,
and every individual able to keep the deck was required to lend his
assistance in repairing the damages of the frigate and securing her
masts.
The promised hour carried the ship safely through all the dangers, which
were much lessened by daylight; and by the time the sun had begun to
fall over the land, Griffith, who had not quitted the deck during the
day, beheld his vessel once more cleared of the confusion of the
chase and battle, and ready to meet another foe. At this period he was
summoned to the cabin, at the request of the ship's chaplain Delivering
the charge of the frigate to Barnstable, who had been his active
assistant, no less in their subsequent labors than in the combat, he
hastily divested himself of the vestiges of the fight, and proceeded to
obey the repeated and earnest call.