Would I were in an alehouse in London,
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.’
Henry V, III. II. 12--13.
The crib in which I was confined was as dark as pitch, and, as I soon
found, as hot as the black-hole in Calcutta. I don’t pretend to be
braver than my neighbours, but I would pluck any man by the beard who
called me coward. In my small way I had in my time faced death in various
shapes; but it had always been above board, with the open heaven overhead,
and generally I had a goodly fellowship in danger, and the eyes of others
were upon me. No wonder, then, that the sinking of the heart within me,
which I now experienced for the first time, was bitter exceedingly, and
grievous to be ‘borne. Cooped up in a small suffocating cabin, scarcely
eight feet square, and not above four feet high, with the certainty of
being murdered, as I conceived, were I to try to force my way on deck, and
the knowledge that all my earthly prospects, all my dreams of promotion,
were likely to be blasted, and for ever ruined by my sudden spiriting away,
not to take into the heavy tale the misery which my poor mother and my
friends must suffer, when they came to know it--and “who will tell this to
thee, Mary?” rose to my throat, but could get no farther for a cursed bump
that was like to throttle me. Why should I blush to own it--when the
gipsy, after all, junked an old rich goutified coffee-planter at the
eleventh hour, and married me, and is now the mother of half-a-dozen
little Cringles or so? However, I made a strong effort to bear my
misfortunes like a man, and, folding my arms, I sat down on a chest to
abide my fate, whatever that might be, with as much composure as I could
command, when half-a-dozen cockroaches flew flicker against my face.
For the information of those who have never seen this delicious insect, I
take leave to mention here, that, when full grown, it is a large dingy
brown-coloured beetle, about two inches long, with six legs, and two f
eelers as long as its body. It has a strong anti-hysterical flavour,
something between rotten cheese and assafoetida, and seldom stirs aboard
when the sun is up, but lies concealed in the most obscure and obscene
crevices it can creep into; so that, when it is seen, its wings and body
are thickly covered with dust and dirt of various shades, which any culprit
who chances to fall asleep with his mouth open, is sure to reap the benefit
of, as it has a great propensity to walk into it, partly for the sake of
the crumbs adhering to the masticators, and also, apparently, with a
scientific desire to inspect, by accurate admeasurement with the aforesaid
antennae, the state and condition of the whole potato trap.
At the same time I felt something gnawing the toe of my boot, which I
inferred to be a rat--another agreeable customer for which I had a special
abhorrence; but, as for beetles of all kinds, from my boyhood up, they had
been an abomination unto me, and a cockroach is the most abominable of all
beetles; so between the two I was speedily roused from my state of supine,
or rather dogged endurance; and, forgetting the geography of my position, I
sprung to my feet, whereby I nearly fractured my skull against the low deck
above. I first tried the skylight; it was battened down--then the companion
hatch; it was locked--but the ladder leading up to it being cooler than the
noisome vapour bath I had left, I remained standing in it, trying to catch
a mouthful of fresh air through the joints of the door. All this while we
had been slipping along shore with the land-wind on our beam, at the rate
of five or six knots, but so gently and silently, that I could distinctly
hear the roar of the surf, as the long smooth swell broke on the beach,
which, from the loudness of the noise, could not be above a mile to
windward of us. I perceived at the same time that the schooner, although
going free, did not keep away nor take all the advantage of the land-wind
to make his easting, before the sea-breeze set down, that he might have
done, so that it was evident he did not intend to beat up, so as to fetch
the Crooked Island Passage, which would have been his course, had he been
bound for the States; but was standing over to the Cuba shore, at that time
swarming with pirates.
It was now good daylight, and the terral gradually died away, and left us
rolling gunwale under, as we rose and fell on the long seas, with our sails
flapping, bulkheads creaking and screaming, and mainboom jig-jigging, as
if it would have torn every thing to pieces. I could hear my friend Obed
walking the deck, and whistling manfully for the sea-breeze, and
exclaiming from time to time in his barbarous lingo, “Souffle, souffle, San
Antonio.” But the saint had no bowels, and there we lay roasting until near
ten o’clock in the forenoon. During all this period, Obed, who was
shortsighted, as I learned afterwards, kept desiring his right arm, Paul
Brandywine, to keep a bright look-out for the sea-breeze to windward, or
rather to the eastward, for there was no wind--because he knowed it
often times tumbling down right sudden and dangerous at this season about
the corner of the island hereabouts; and the pride of the morning often
brought a shower with it, fit to level a maize plat smooth as his hand.
“No black clouds to windward yet, Paul?”
Paul could see nothing, and the question was repeated three or four times.
“There is a small black cloud about the size of my hand to windward, sir,
right in the wake of the sun, just now, but it won’t come to any thing; I
sees no signs of any wind.”
“And Elijah said to his servant, Go up now, and look towards the sea, and
he went up and looked, and said there is nothing; and he said go again
seven times, and it came to pass the seventh time, that he said behold
there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand.”
I knew what this foreboded, which, as I thought, was more than friend Obed
did; for he shortened no sail, and kept all his kites abroad, for no use as
it struck me, unless he wished to wear them out by flapping against the
masts. He was indeed a strange mixture of skill and carelessness; but,
when fairly stirred up, one of the most daring and expert and
self-possessed seamen I had ever seen, as very soon had an ugly
opportunity of ascertaining.
The cloud on the horizon continued to rise rapidly, spreading over the
whole eastern sky, and the morning began to lower very ominously; but there
was no sudden squall, the first of the breeze coming down as usual in cats’
paws, and freshening gradually; nor did I expect there would be, although
I was certain it would soon blow a merry capful of wind, which might take
in some of the schooner’s small sails, and pretty considerably bother us,
unless we could better our offing speedily, for it blew right on shore,
which, by the setting in of the sea-breeze, was now close under our lee.
At length the sniffler reached us, and the sharp little vessel began to
speak, as the rushing sound through the water is called; while the wind
sang like an Eolian harp through the taut weather-rigging. Presently I
heard the word given to take in the two gaff-topsails and flying jib,
which was scarcely done, when the moaning sound roughened into a roar, and
the little vessel began to yerk at the head seas, as if she would have cut
through them, in place of rising to them, and to lie over, as if Davy Jones
himself had clapperclawed the mast heads, and was in the act of using them
as levers to capsize her, while the sails were tugging at her, as if they
would have torn the spars out of her, so that I expected every moment,
either that she would turn over, keel up, or that the masts would snap
short off by the deck.
All this, which I would without the smallest feeling of dread, on the
contrary with exhilaration, have faced cheerily on deck in the course of
duty, proved at the time, under my circumstances, most alarming and painful
to me; a fair-strae death out of the maintop, or off the weather-yard
arm, would to my imagination have been an easy exit comparatively; but to
be choked in this abominable hole, and drowned darkling like a blind
puppy--the very thought made me frantic, and I shouted and tumbled about,
until I missed my footing and fell backwards down the ladder, from the
bottom of which I scuttled away to the lee-side of the cabin, quiet,
through absolute despair and exhaustion from the heat and closeness.
I had remarked that from the time the breeze freshened, the everlasting
Yankee drawling of the crew, and the endless confabulation of the captain
and his mate, had entirely ceased, and nothing was now heard on deck but
the angry voice of the raging elements, and at intervals a shrill piercing
word or two from Obed, in the altered tone of which I had some difficulty
in recognising his pipe, which rose clear and distinct above the roar of
the sea and wind, and was always answered by a prompt, sharp, “ay, ay,
sir,” from the men. There was no circumlocution, nor calculating, nor
guessing now, but all hands seemed to be doing their duty energetically and
well. “Come, the vagabonds are sailors after all, we shan’t be swamped
this turn;” and I resumed my place on the companion ladder, with more ease
of mind, and a vast deal more composure, than when I was pitched from it
when the squall came on. In a moment after I could hear the captain sing
out, loud even above the howling of the wind and rushing of the water,
“There it comes at last--put your helm hard a-port-down with it, Paul,
down with it, man-luff, and shake the wind out of her sails, or over we
goes, clean and for ever.’ Everything was jammed, nothing could be let go,
nor was there an axe at hand to make short work with the sheets and
haulyards; and for a second or two I thought it was all over, the water
rushing half way up her decks, and bubbling into the companion through the
crevices; but at length the lively little craft came gaily to the wind,
shaking her plumage like a wild duck; the sails were got in, all to the
foresail, which was set with the bonnet off, and then she lay-to like a
seagull, without shipping a drop of water. In the comparative stillness I
could now distinctly hear every word that was said on deck.
“Pretty near it; rather close shaving that same, captain,” quoth Paul, with
a congratulatory chuckle; “but I say, sir, what is that wreath of smoke
rising from Annotta Bay over the headland?”
“Why, how should I know, Paul? Negroes burning brush, I guess.”
“The smoke from brushwood never rose and flew over the bluff with that
swirl, I calculate; it is a gun, or I mistake.”
And he stepped to the companion for the purpose, as I conceived, of taking
out the spy-glass, which usually hangs there in brackets fitted to hold
it; he undid the hatch and pushed it back, when I popped my head out, to
the no small dismay of the mate; but Obed was up to me, and while with one
hand he seized the glass, he ran the sliding top sharp up against my neck,
till he pinned me into a kind of pillory, to my great annoyance; so I had
to beg to be released, and once more slunk back into my hole. There was a
long pause; at length Paul, to whom the skipper had handed the spy-glass,
spoke.
“A schooner, sir, is rounding the point.”
As I afterwards learned, the negroes who had witnessed my capture,
especially the old man who had taken me for his infernal majesty, had
raised the alarm, so soon as they could venture down to the overseer’s
house, which was on the smuggling boat shoving off, and Mr Fyall
immediately despatched an express to the Lieutenant commanding the Gleam,
then lying in Annotta Bay, about ten miles distant, when she instantly
slipped and shoved out.
“Well, I can’t help it if there be,” rejoined the captain. Another pause.
“Why, I don’t like her, sir; she looks like a man-of-war-and that must
have been the smoke of the gun she fired on weighing.’
“Eh?” sharply answered Obed, “if it be, it will be a hanging matter if we
are caught with this young splice on board; he may belong to her for what I
know. Look again, Paul.”
A long, long look.
“A man-of-war schooner, sure enough, sir; I can see her ensign and
pennant, now that she is clear of the land.”
“Oh Lord, oh Lord!” cried Obed, in great perplexity, “what shall we do?”
“Why, pull foot, Captain,” promptly replied Paul; “the breeze has lulled,
and in light winds she will have no chance with the tidy little Wave.”
I could now perceive that the smugglers made all sail, and I heard the
frequent swish--swish of the water, as they threw bucketfuls on the sails,
to thicken them and make them hold more wind, while we edged away, keeping
as close to the wind, however, as we could, without stopping her way.
“Starboard,” quoth Obed--“rap full, Jem--let her walk through it, my
boy--there, main and foresail, flat as boards; why, she will stand the
main-gaff-topsail yet--set it, Paul, set it;” and his heart warmed as he
gained confidence in the qualifications of his vessel. “Come, weather me
now, see how she trips it along--poo, I was an ass to quail, wan’t I,
Paul?”
No chance, now, thought I, as I descended once more; “I may as well go and
be suffocated at once.” I knocked my foot against something, in stepping
off the ladder, which, on putting down my hand, I found to be tinder-box,
with steel and flint. I had formerly ascertained there was a candle in the
cabin, on the small table, stuck into a bottle; so I immediately struck a
light, and as I knew that meekness and solicitation, having been tried in
vain, would not serve me, I determined to go on the other tack, and to see
how far an assumption of coolness and self-possession, or, it might be, a
dash of bravado, whether true or feigned, might not at least ensure me some
consideration and better treatment from the lawless gang into whose hands I
had fallen.
So I set to and ransacked the lockers, where, amongst a vast variety of
miscellaneous matters, I was not long in finding a bottle of very tolerable
rum, some salt junk, some biscuit, and a goglet or porous earthen jar of
water, with some capital cigars. By this time I was like to faint with the
heat and smell; so I filled a tumbler with good half-and-half and swigged
it off. The effect was speedy; I thought I could eat a bit, so I attacked
the salt junk and made a hearty meal, after which I replenished my tumbler,
lighted a cigar, pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and, with a sort of
desperate glee, struck up at the top of my pipe, “Ye Mariners of England.”
My joviality was soon noticed on deck.
“Eh, what be that?” quoth Obed,--“that be none of our ditties, I guess? who
is singing below there?’
“We be all on deck, sir,’ responded Paul.
“It can’t be the spy, eh?--sure enough it must be he, and no one else; the
heat and choke must have made him mad.”
“We shall soon see,” said Paul, as he removed the skylight, and looked down
into the cabin.
Obed looked over his shoulder, peering at me with his little short-sighted
pig’s eyes, into which, in my pot valiancy, I immediately chucked half a
tumbler of very strong grog, and under cover of it attempted to bolt
through the scuttle, and thereby gain the deck; but Paul, with his shoulder
of mutton fist, gave me a very unceremonious rebuff, and down I dropped
again.
“You makes yourself at home, I sees, and be hanged to you,” said Obed,
laying the emphasis on the last word, pronouncing it “yoo--oo” in two
syllables.
“I do, indeed, and be d----d to yoo--oo,” I replied; “and why should I not?
the visit was not volunteered, you know so come down, you long-legged
Yankee smuggling scoundrel, or I’ll blow your bloody buccaneering craft out
of the water like the peel of an onion. You see I have got the magazine
scuttle up, and there are the barrels of powder, and here is the candle,
so”--
Obed laughed like the beginning of the bray of the jackass before he swings
off into his “heehaw, heehaw.”--“Smash my eyes, man, but them barrels be
full of pimento, all but that one with the red mark, and that be crackers
fresh and sharp from the Brandywine mills.”
“Well, well, gunpowder or pimento, I’ll set fire to it if you don’t be
civil.”
“Why, I will be civil; you are a curious chap, a brave slip, to carry it
so, with no friend near; so, civil I will be.”
He unlocked the companion hatch and came down to the cabin, doubling his
long limbs up like foot-rules, to suit the low roof.
“Free and easy, my man,” continued the Captain, as he entered. “Well, I
forgive you--we are quits now--and if we were not beyond the Island Craft,
I would put you ashore, but I can’t stand back now.” “Why, may I ask?”
“Simply, because one of your men-of-war schooners an’t more than hull
down astarn of me at this moment; she is working up in shore, and has not
chased me as yet; indeed she may save herself the trouble, for ne’er a
schooner in your blasted service has any chance with the tidy little Wave.”
I was by no means so sure of this.
“Well Master Obediah, it may turn up as you say, and in a light wind, I
know you will either sail or sweep away from any one of them; but, to be on
the square with you, if it comes on to blow, that same hooker, which I take
to be his Britannic Majesty’s schooner Gleam, will, from his greater beam,
and superior length, out carry and forereach on you, ay, and weather on you
too, hand over hand; so this is my compact--if he nails you, you will
require a friend at court, and I will stand that friend; if you escape--and
I will not interfere either by advice or otherwise, either to get you taken
or to get you clear will you promise to put me on board of the first
English merchant vessel we fall in with, or, at the longest, to land me at
St Jago de Cuba, and I will promise you, on my honour, notwithstanding all
that has been said or done, that I will never hereafter inform against you,
or in any way get you into trouble if I can help it. Is it done? Will you
ive me your hand upon it?”
Obed did not hesitate a moment; he clenched my hand, and squeezed it till
the blood nearly spouted from my finger-ends; one might conceive of
Norwegian bears greeting each other after this fashion, but I trust no
Christian will ever, in time coming, subject my digits to a similar species
of torture.
“Agreed, my boy, I have promised, and you may depend on me; smuggler though
I be, and somewhat worse on occasion mayhap, I never breaks my word.”
There was an earnestness about the poor fellow, in which I thought there
could be no deception, and from that moment we were on what I may call a
very friendly footing for a prisoner and his jailer.
“Well, now, I believe you, so let us have a glass of grog, and”--
Here the mate sung out, “Captain, come on deck, if you please; quickly,
sir, quickly.”
By this time it had begun to breeze up again, and as the wind rose, I could
see the spirits of the crew fell, as if conscious they had no chance if it
freshened. When we went on deck, Paul was still peering through the
telescope.
“The schooner has tacked, sir.” A dead silence; then giving the glass a
swing, and driving the joints into each other, with such vehemence as if he
would have broken them in pieces, he exclaimed, “She is after us, so sure
as I ben’t a niger.”
“No! is she though?” eagerly enquired the captain, as he at length seized
the spy-glass, twisting and turning it about and about, as he tried to hit
his own very peculiar focus. At length he took a long, long, breathless
look, while the eyes of the whole crew, some fifteen hands or so, were
riveted upon him with the most intense anxiety.
“What a gaff-topsail she has got--my eye!--and a ringtail with more cloths
in it than our squaresail--and the breeze comes down stronger and
stronger!”
All this while I looked out equally excited, but with a very different
interest. “Come, this will do,’ thought I; ‘she is after us; and if old
Dick Casket brings that fiery sea-breeze he has now along with him, we
shall puzzle the smuggler, for all his long start.”
“There’s a gun, sir,” cried Paul, trembling from head to foot.
“Sure enough,” said the skipper; “and it must be a signal. And there go
three flags at the fore.--She must, I’ll bet a hundred dollars, have taken
our tidy little Wave for the Admiral’s tender that was lying in Morant
Bay.”
“Blarney,” thought I; “tidy as your little Wave is, she won’t deceive old
Dick--he is not the man to take a herring for a horse; she must be making
signals to some man-of-war in sight.”
“A strange sail right a-head,” sung out three men from forward all at
once.
“Didn’t I say so?”--I had only thought so. “Come, Master Obediah, it
thickens now, you’re in for it,” said I.
But he was not in the least shaken; as the matter grew serious, he seemed
to brace up to meet it. He had been flurried at the first, but he was
collected and cool as a cucumber now, when he saw every thing depending on
his seamanship and judgment. Not so Paul, who seemed to have made up his
mind that they must be taken.
“Jezebel Brandywine, you are but a widowed old lady, I calculate. I shall
never see the broad, smooth Chesapeake again--no more peach brandy for
Paul;” and folding his arms, he set himself doggedly down on the low
tafferel.
Little did I think at the time how fearfully the poor fellow’s foreboding
was so soon to be fulfilled.
“There again,” said I, “a second puff to windward.” This was another signal
gun I knew; and I went forward to where the captain was reconnoitring the
sail a-head through the glass. “Let me see,” said I, “and I will be
honest with you, and tell you if I know her.”
He handed me the glass at once, and the instant I saw the top of her
courses above the water, I was sure, from the red cross in her foresail,
that she was the Firebrand, the very corvette to which I was appointed.
She was so well to windward, that I considered it next to impossible that
we should weather her, but Obediah seemed determined to try it. After
seeing his little vessel snug under mainsail, foresail, and jib, which was
as much as she could stagger under, and every thing right and tight, and
all clear to make more sail should the breeze lull, he ordered the men
below, and took the helm himself. What queer animals sailors are! We were
rising the corvette fast; and on going aft again from the bows, where I had
been looking at her, I cast my eye down the hatchway into the men’s berth,
and there were the whole crew at breakfast, laughing and joking, and
enjoying themselves, as heartily, apparently, nay, I verily believe in
reality, as if they had been in a yacht on a cruise of pleasure, in place
of having one enemy nearly within gunshot astern, and another trying to cut
them off ahead.
At this moment the schooner in chase luffed up in the wind, and I noticed
the foot of the foresail lift. “You’ll have it now, friend Obed; there’s
at you in earnest.” While I spoke, a column of thick white smoke spouted
over the bows of the Gleam, about twenty yards to windward, and then blew
back again amongst the sails and rigging, as if a gauze veil had for an
instant been thrown over the little vessel, rolling off down the wind to
leeward, in whirling eddies, growing thinner and thinner, until it
disappeared altogether. I heard the report this time, and the shot fell
close alongside of us.
“A good mark with that apple,” coolly observed the Captain; “the Long Tom
must be a tearer, to pitch its mouthful of iron this length.”
Another succeeded; and if I had been still pinned up in the companion,
there would have been no log now, for it went crash through
into the hold.
“Go it, my boys,” shouted I; “a few more as well aimed, and heigh for the
Firebrand’s gunroom!”
At the mention of the Firebrand I thought Obed started, but he soon
recovered himself, and looking at me with all the apparent composure in the
world, he smiled as he said, “Not so fast, Lieutenant; you and I have not
drank our last glass of swizzle yet, I guess. If I can but weather that
chap ahead, I don’t fear the schooner.”
The corvette had by this time answered the signal from the Gleam, and had
hauled his wind also, so that I did not conceive it possible that the Wave
could scrape clear, without coming under his broadside.
“You won’t try it, Obed, surely?’
“Answer me this, and I’ll tell you,” rejoined he. “Does that corvette now
carry long 18’s or 32-pound carronades?”
“She carries 32-pound carronades.’
“Then you’ll not sling your cot in her gunroom this cruise.”
All this time the little Wave was carrying to it gallantly, her jib-boom
bending like whalebone, and her long slender topmasts whipping about like a
couple of fishing-rods, as she thrashed at it, sending the spray flashing
over her mastheads at every pitch; but notwithstanding her weatherly
qualities, the heavy cross sea, as she drove into it, headed her off
bodily, and she could not prevent the Gleam from creeping up on her weather
quarter, where she peppered away from her long 24-pounder, throwing the
shot over and over us.
To tack, therefore, would have been to run into the lion’s mouth, and to
bear up was equally hopeless, as the corvette, going free, would have
chased her under water; the only chance remaining was to stand on, and
trust to the breeze taking off, and try to weather the ship, now about
three miles distant on our lee bow, braced sharp up on the opposite tack,
and evidently quite aware of our game.
As the corvette and the Wave neared each other, he threw a shot at us from
the boat gun on his topgallant forecastle, as if to ascertain beyond all
doubt the extent of our insanity, and whether we were serious in our
attempt to weather him and escape.
Obed held right on his course, like grim Death. Another bullet whistled
over our mastheads, and, with the aid of the glass, I could see by the
twinkling of feet, and here and there a busy peering face through the
ports, that the crew were at quarters fore and aft, while fourteen marines
or so were all ready rigged on the poop, and the nettings were bristling
through the whole length of the ship, with fifty or sixty small-arm men.
All this I took care to communicate to Obediah. “I say, my good friend, I
see little to laugh at in all this. If you do go to windward of him at
all, which I greatly doubt, you will have to cross his fore-foot within
pistol-shot at the farthest, and then you will have to rasp along his
whole broadside of great and small, and they are right well prepared and
ready for you, that I can tell you; the skipper of that ship has had some
dedication, I guess, in the war on your coast, for he seems up to your
tricks, and I don’t doubt but he will tip you the stem, if need be, with as
little compunction as I would kill a cockroach, devil confound the whole
breed! There,--I see his marines and small-arm men handling their
firelocks, as thick as sparrows under the lee of a hedge in a snow-storm,
and the people are training the bull-dogs fore and aft. Why, this is
downright, stark staring lunacy, Obed; we shall be smashed like an
eggshell, and all hands of us whipped off to Davy, from your cursed
foolhardiness.”
I had made several pauses in my address, expecting an answer, but Obed was
mute as a stone. At length I took the glass from my eye, and turned round
to look at him, startled by his silence.
I might have heard of such things, but I had never before seen the working
of the spirit so forcibly and fearfully demonstrated by the aspect of the
outward man. With the exception of myself, he was the only man on deck, as
before mentioned, and by this time he was squatted down on it, with his
long legs and thighs thrust down into the cabin, through the open skylight.
The little vessel happened to carry a weather helm, so that his long sinewy
arms, with their large veins and leaders strained to cracking, covered but
a small way below the elbow by his jacket, were stretched as far as they
could clutch the tiller to windward, and his enormous head, supported on
his very short trunk, that seemed to be countersunk into the deck, gave him
a most extraordinary appearance. But this was not all; his complexion,
usually sallow and sunburnt, was now ghastly and blue, like that of the
corpse of a drowned man; the muscles of the neck, and the flesh of the
cheeks and chin were rigid and fixed, and shrunk into one half of their
usual compass; the lips were so compressed that they had almost entirely
disappeared, and all that marked his mouth was a black line; the nostrils
were distended, and thin and transparent, while the forehead was shrivelled
into the most minute and immovable wrinkles, as if done with a crimping
instrument while over his eyes, or rather his eye, for he kept
one closed as if it had been hermetically sealed, he had lashed with half a
dozen turns of spun-yarn a wooden socket, like the but-end of an opera
glass, fitted with some sort of magnifier, through which he peered out
ahead most intensely, stooping down, and stretching his long bare neck to
its utmost reach, that he might see under the foot of the foresail.
I had scarcely time to observe all this, when a round shot came through the
head of the mainsail, grazing the mast, and the very next instant a bushel
of grape, from one of the bow guns, a 32-pound carronade, was crashed in
on us amidships. I flung down the glass, and dived through the companion
into the cabin--I am not ashamed to own it; and any man who would
undervalue my courage in consequence, can never, taking into consideration
the peculiarities of my situation, have known the appalling sound, or
infernal effect of a discharge of grape. Round shot in broadsides is a
joke to it; musketry is a joke to it; but only conjure up in your
imagination, a shower of iron bullets, of the size of well-grown plums, to
the number of from sixty to one hundred and twenty, taking effect within a
circle, not above ten feet in diameter, and that all this time there was
neither honour nor glory in the case, for I was a miserable captive, and I
fancy I may save myself the trouble of farther enlargement.
I found that the crew had by this time started and taken up the planks of
the cabin floor, and had stowed themselves well down into the run, so as to
be as much out of harm’s way as they could manage, but there was neither
fear nor flinching amongst them; and although totally devoid of all
gasconade--on the contrary, they had taken all the precautions men could do
in their situation, to keep out of harm’s way, or at least to lessen the
danger--there they sat, silent, and cool, and determined. “I shall never
undervalue an American as an enemy again,” thought I. I lay down on the
side of the little vessel, now nearly level as she lay over, alongside of
Paul Brandywine, in a position that commanded a view of Obed’s face through
the small scuttle. Ten minutes might have elapsed--a tearing crash--and a
rattle on the deck overhead, as if a shower of stones had been thrown from
aloft on it.
“That’s through the mainmast, I expect,” quoth Paul.
I looked from him to the Captain; a black thick stream of blood was
trickling down behind his ear. Paul had noticed it also.
“You are hurt by one of them splinters, I see; give me the helm now,
Captain;” and, crushed down as the poor fellow appeared to be under some
fearful and mysterious consciousness of impending danger, he nevertheless
addressed himself to take his Captain’s place.
“Hold your blasted tongue”--was the polite rejoinder.
“I say, Captain,”--shouted your humble servant, “you may as well eat pease
with a pitchfork, as try to weather him. You are hooked, man, flounder as
you will. Old Nick can’t shake you clear--so I won’t stand this any
longer;” and making a spring, I jammed myself through the skylight, until I
sat on the deck, looking aft, and confronting him, and there we were, stuck
up like the two kings of Brentford, or a couple of smiling cherries on one
stalk. I have often laughed over the figure we must have cut, but at the
time there was that going on that would have made Comus himself look grave.
I had at length fairly aroused the sleeping devil within him.
“Look out there, Lieutenant--look out there,”--and he pointed with his
sinister claw down to leeward. I did so--whew!--what a sight for poor
Master Thomas Cringle! “You are booked for an outside place, Master
Tommy,” thought I to myself--for there was the corvette in very truth--she
had just tacked, and was close aboard of us on our lee quarter, within
musket-shot at the farthest, bowling along upon a wind, with the green,
hissing, multitudinous sea surging along her sides, and washing up in foam,
like snow flakes, through the mid-ship ports, far aft on the quarterdeck,
to the glorification of jack, who never minds a wet jacket, so long as he
witnesses the discomfiture of his ally, Peter Pipeclay. The press of
canvass she was carrying laid her over, until her copper sheathing, clear
as glass, and glancing like gold, was seen high above the water, throughout
her whole length, above which rose her glossy jet black bends, surmounted
by a milk-white streak, broken at regular intervals into eleven goodly
ports, from which the British cannon, ugly customers at the best, were
grinning, tompion out, open-mouthed at us; and above all, the clean,
well-stowed white hammocks filled the nettings, from tafferel to cathead
oh! that I had been in one of them, snug on the berth deck! Aloft, a cloud
of white sail swelled to the breeze, till the cloth seemed inclined to say
goodby to the bolt ropes, bending the masts like willow-wands, as if the
devil, determined to beat Paganini himself, was preparing fiddlesticks to
play a spring with, on the cracking and straining weather shrouds and
backstays, and tearing her sharp wedge-like bows out of the bowels of the
long swell, until the cutwater, and ten yards of the keel next to it, were
hove clean out of the sea, into which she would descend again with a
roaring plunge, burying every thing up to the hause-holes, and driving the
brine into mist, over the fore-top, like vapour from a waterfall, through
which, as she rose again, the bright red copper on her bows flashed back
the sunbeams in momentary rainbows. We were so near, that I could with the
naked eye distinctly see the faces of the men. There were at least 150
determined fellows at quarters, and clustered with muskets in their hands,
wherever they could be posted to most advantage.
There they were in groups about the ports, (I could even see the captains
of the guns, examining the locks,) in their clean white frocks and
trowsers, the officers of the ship, and the marines, clearly
distinguishable by their blue or red jackets. I could discern the very
sparkle of the epaulets.
High overhead, the red cross, that for a thousand years “has braved the
battle and the breeze,” blew out strong from the peak, like a sheet of
flickering white flame, or a thing instinct with life, struggling to tear
away the ensign haulyards, and to escape high into the clouds; while, from
the main-royal-masthead, the long white pennant streamed upwards into the
azure heavens, like a ray of silver light. Oh! it was a sight “most
beautiful to see,” as the old song hath it,-----but I confess I would have
preferred that pleasure from t’other side of the hedge.
There was no hailing nor trumpeting, although, as we crossed on opposite
tacks when we first weathered her, just before she hove in stays, I had
heard a shrill voice sing out, “Take good aim, men--Fire”; but now each
cannon in thunder shot forth its glance of flame, without a word being
uttered, as she kept away to bring them to bear in succession, while the
long feathery cloud of whirling white smoke that shrouded her sides from
stem to stem, was sparkling brilliantly throughout with crackling musketry,
for all the world like fire-flies in a bank of night fog from the hills,
until the breeze blew it back again through the rigging, and once more
unveiled the lovely craft in all her pride and glory.
“You see all that?’ said Obed.
“To be sure I do, and I feel something too’; for a sharp rasping jar was
repeated in rapid succession three or four times, as so many shot struck
our hull, and made the splinters glance about merrily; and the musketballs
were mottling our top sides and spars, plumping into the timber, whit whit!
as thick as ever you saw schoolboys’ plastering a church door with
clay-pellets. There was a heavy groan, and a stir amongst the seamen in
the run.
“And, pray, do you see and hear all that yourself, Master Obed? The iron
has clenched some of your chaps down there.--Stay a bit, you shall have a
better dose presently, you obstinate old”--
He waved his hand, and interrupted me with great energy--“I dare not give
in, I cannot give in; all I have in the world swims in the little hooker,
and strike I will not so long as two planks stick together.
“Then,” quoth I, “you are simply a damned, cold-blooded, calculating
scoundrel--brave I will never call you.” I saw he was now stung to the
quick.
“Lieutenant, smuggler as I am, don’t goad me to what worse I may have been;
there are some deeds done in my time, which at a moment like this I don’t
much like to think upon. I am a desperate man, Master Cringle; don’t, for
your own sake, as well as mine, try me too far.’
“Well but”--persisted I. He would hear nothing.
“Enough said, sir, enough said; there was not an honester trader nor a
happier man in all the Union, until your infernal pillaging an burning
squadron in the Chesapeake captured and ruined me; but I paid it off on the
prize-master, although we were driven on the rocks after all. I paid it
off, and, God help me, I have never thriven since, enemy although he was.
I see the poor fellow’s face yet, as I!”--He checked himself suddenly, as
if aware that he might say more than could be conveniently retracted. “But
I dare not be taken; let that satisfy you, Master Cringle, so go
below--below with you, sir”--I saw he had succeeded in lashing himself into
a fury--“or, by the Almighty God, who hears me, I shall be tempted to do
another deed, the remembrance of which will haunt me till my dying day.”
All this passed in no time, as we say, much quicker than one can read it;
and I now saw that the corvette had braced up sharp to the wind again, on
the same tack that we were on; so I slipped down like an eel, and once more
stretched myself beside Paul, on the lee side of the cabin. We soon found
that she was indeed after us in earnest, by the renewal of the cannonade,
and the breezing up of the small arms again. Two round shot now tore right
through the deck, just beneath the larboard coamings of the main hatchway;
the little vessel’s deck, as she lay over, being altogether exposed to, the
enemy’s fire, they made her whole frame tremble again, smashing every thing
in their way to shivers, and going right out through her bottom on the
opposite side, within a dozen streaks of her keel, while the rattling of
the clustered grapeshot every now and then made us start, the musketry all
the while peppering away like a hail shower. Still the skipper, who I
expected every moment to see puffed away from the tiller like smoke, held
upon deck as if he had been bullet-proof, and seemed to escape the hellish
tornado of missiles of all sorts and sizes by a miracle.
“He is in league with the old one, Paul,” said I; “howsoever, you must be
nabbed, for you see the ship is forereaching on you, and you can’t go on
t’other tack, surely, with these pretty eyelet holes between wind and water
on the weather side there? Your captain is mad why will you, then, and all
these poor fellows, go down, because he dare not surrender, for some good
deed of his own, eh?”
The roar of the cannon and noise of the musketry made it necessary for me
to raise my voice here, which the small scuttle, like Dionysius’s ear,
conveyed unexpectedly to my friend, the captain, on deck.
“Hand me up my pistols, Paul.”
It had struck me before, and I was now certain, that from the time he had
become so intensely excited as he was now, he spoke with a pure English
accent, without the smallest dash of Yankeeism.
“So, so; I see--no wonder you won’t strike, you renegade,” cried I.
“You have tampered with my crew, sir, and abused me,” he announced, in a
stem, slow tone, much more alarming than his former fierceness, “so take
that, to quiet you;” and deuce take me if he did not, the moment he
received the pistols from his mate, fire slap at me, the ball piercing the
large muscle of my neck on the right side, missing the artery by the merest
accident. Thinking I was done for, I covered my face with my hands, and
commanded myself to God, with all the resignation that could be expected
from a poor young fellow in my grievous circumstances, expecting to be cut
off in the prima vera of his days, and to part for ever from--. Poo, that
there line is not my forte. However, finding the haemorrhage by no means
great, and that the wound was in fact slight, I took the captain’s rather
strong hint to be still, and lay quiet, until a 32-pound shot struck us
bang on the quarter. The subdued force with which it came, showed that we
were widening our distance, for it did not drive through and through with a
crash, but lodged in a timber; nevertheless it started one of the planks
across which Paul and I lay, and pitched us both with extreme violence
bodily into the run amongst the men, three of them lying amongst the
ballast, which was covered with blood, two badly wounded, and one dead. I
came off with some slight bruises, however; not so the poor mate. He had
been nearest the end or but that was started, which thereby struck him so
forcibly, that it fractured his spine, and dashed him amongst his
shipmates, shrieking piercingly in his great agony, and clutching whatever
he could grasp with his hands, and tearing whatever he could reach with his
teeth, while his limbs below his waist were dead and paralysed.
“Oh, Christ! water, water,” he cried, “water, for the love of God, water!”
The crew did all they could; but his torments increased--the blood began to
flow from his mouth--his hands became clay--cold and pulseless--his
features sharp, blue, and death--like--his respiration difficult--the
choking death--rattle succeeded, and in ten minutes he was dead.
This was the last shot that told--every report became more and more faint,
and the musketry soon ceased altogether.
The breeze had taken off, and the Wave, resuming her superiority in light
winds, had escaped.