THE FIRST STAGE OF THE HOMEWARD VOYAGE IS BRAVELY ACCOMPLISHED
At nine o'clock of the morning of the twenty-second day of June, the bow
of the _Heart of the West_ was towed around and pointed down-stream by
willing boats and canoes; a light wind filled such sails as were set,
and the voyage was begun. Trigget fired a salute from a new gun which
Kingswell had given him from the armament of the ship. It was answered
by the barking of cannon and the fluttering of sails.
Ouenwa stood with Mistress Westleigh, Kingswell, and Maggie Stone, aft
by the tiller, which was in the hands of Tom Bent. The lad was fairly
wild with excitement. Now, it seemed to him, his great dreams were
assured; and yet a pang of homesickness went through the joy like the
blade of a knife, as he watched the faces of the clustered people along
the meadow and in the boats grow dim,--the faces of William Trigget and
Black Feather, and of a dozen more who were dear to him. He shouted back
to them in English and in his native tongue, and waved his cap
frantically. The faces blurred and wavered. The ship swam around the
wooded point, and meadow and stockade and camp of wigwams vanished like
a picture withdrawn. The lad turned and glanced at Mistress Westleigh.
Then he walked forward to the break of the poop, and blinked very hard
at nothing in particular in the belly of the maintopsail.
Soon the wooded banks fell away on either side, and the water changed
its tint of amber for wind-roughened green. The gray, purple, and brown
shores of the roadstead widened and dropped lower, and azure uplands
shone beyond their frowning brows. The wind freshened, and white flakes
of foam whipped from crest to crest across the ever-shifting,
ever-vanishing valleys of green. Along the fading cliffs white sea-birds
circled and settled like flakes of snow. A few great gulls winged around
the ship, fleeing to leeward like bolts of mist, and beating up again
with quivering pinions.
Kingswell had taken the duties of sailing-master upon himself. He was as
good a deep-sea navigator as any man on the whole width of the North
Atlantic. When the outer bay was reached, yards were swung around, and
the stout bark headed due east at his orders. To see old Tom Bent push
the tiller over, and other seasoned mariners man brace and sheet, at the
command of that gold-haired youth, made the heart of Beatrix Westleigh
flutter with pride. Her dark eyes, already bright and lovely beyond
power of description, shone yet more brightly; and her cheeks, already
flushed to clear flame by the wind, deepened their glow. As the ship
answered to his will, so would he answer to her whim. It was a pleasant
reflection to the lady; and to realize it she called softly. Without a
glance at the straining sails, he turned and hastened to her side.
The voyage from Fort Beatrix to the wonderful harbour and brave little
town of St. John's was made without accident, though not without
incident. In Bonavista Bay, at a gray hour of the morning, the stump of
a great iceberg was narrowly avoided. A day later, a large vessel that
was evidently employed at fishing evinced an undesirable interest in the
business of the _Heart of the West_. She was not a quarter of a mile
distant when first sighted, for a light fog was on the water. She flew
no flag, and changed her course and altered her speed with sinister
promptness. Kingswell, and every man of the ship's company, knew that
pirates of many nationalities infested those waters during summer. The
worst of the thieves were Turks; and the fishing-ship or store-ship that
was overhauled by those gentry usually lost more than its cargo.
Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Spaniards also had a weakness for playing the
part of the bald eagle, with their heavy metalled and wide-sailed craft,
to the rôle of the fishhawk so unwillingly played by the merchantmen.
Happily for Kingswell's command, the stranger was inshore and to
leeward. Both watches were piped up by Tom Bent. The gunners went to
their quarters. Sail after sail unfurled about the already straining
masts and yards. The brave little ship answered willingly to the
pressure, and her cutwater broke the flanks of the waves into sibilant
foam.
A rumour of the chase reached Mistress Beatrix and her old maid, in the
seclusion of that snug cabin in which Master Trowley was, at one time,
wont to revel. Maggie Stone drew the curtains across the thick glass of
the after-port (as if fearing that the eagle glance of one of the
pirates might pierce the privacy of her retreat), and then devoted
herself to tearful prayer. Beatrix completed her toilet, threw a cloak
over her shoulders, and climbed the companion. She joined Kingswell by
the tiller, and, after saluting him tenderly and with a composure that
took no heed of the sailor at the helm, watched the chase with interest.
"They outsail us," she said, presently.
Kingswell nodded. "But she'll never get near us on that course," he
replied. "She is for heading us off, and getting to windward. If she
gets to windward of us--Lord, but I scarce think she will."
He said a word of preparation to the man at the tiller, and then gave a
few quick orders from the break of the poop. In half a minute the _Heart
of the West_ headed out on an easy tack. When every sail was drawing to
his liking, he returned to the girl.
"How glorious!" she cried. "A good horse, a singing pack, and an old fox
make but slow sport compared to this."
"We are the fox on this hunting morning," smiled Kingswell.
"With teeth," she hinted.
He noticed that the unwelcome stranger was shouldering the wind on the
new course. He looked at the girl.
"Ay, we have teeth, sweeting," he said, "and soon we'll be gnashing
them."
Though the _Heart of the West_ sailed well, to windward, the big craft
astern sailed even better. The ships, crowded with canvas, the dancing
blue water and cloudless sky, and the brown and azure coast to leeward,
made a fine picture under the white sun. As the stranger drew near and
nearer, excitement increased aboard the merchantman. Old Trowley bawled
to be set free, that he might not die in the sail-locker like a rat in a
hole. Tom Bent spat on his hard hands, and pulled his belt an inch
shorter. Ouenwa lugged up shot and powder, and was for opening fire at
an impossible range. Beatrix roused Maggie Stone from her devotions, and
took her forward to a place of greater safety in the men's quarters.
Along either side of the after-cabin of the _Heart of the West_ ran a
narrow passage. Each passage ended in a blind port, and behind each port
crouched a gun of unusual size for so peaceful an appearing ship. Now
Kingswell blessed the day that a youthful love of warlike gear and a
heart for adventure had led him to add these pieces to the armament of
his ship. He remembered, with a contented smile, how Master Trowley had
growled at the delay caused by getting the great guns aboard and
partitioning off the passage. Even his mother had urged him to put more
faith in the great ship which the king was so gracious as to send to
Newfounde Land each spring, as a convoy to the fishing fleet. But
Master Bernard, spoiled child, had had his way; and now he thanked the
gods of war for it.
Both ships sailed as close to the wind as their models and rigging and
the laws of nature would allow. They went about often on ever shortening
tacks. The hunter outsailed the hunted, though it is safe to say that
her seamanship was no better. Suddenly she luffed until her sails
quivered, and from her bows broke two puffs of smoke with inner cores of
flame. Both shots flew high, and fell ahead of the quarry in brief
spouts of torn water. At that, the blind ports in the stern of the
merchantman opened up, and the sinister muzzles of the guns were run out
with a gust of English cheering. Then their sudden voices boomed
defiance, and the smoke rolled along the water and clung to the leaping
waves.
Kingswell felt the deck jump under his feet. His pulses leaped with the
good planks. "Hit!" he cried--and sure enough, one of the enemy's upper
spars, with its burden of flapping canvas, tottered desperately, and
then swooped down on the clustered buccaneers beneath. Half an hour
later the _Heart of the West_ was spinning along on her old course, and
far astern the stranger lay to and nursed her wound.
Three days later, at high noon, the Narrows opened in the sheer brown
face of the cliffs, and the people of the _Heart of the West_ caught a
glimpse of the harbour and the shipping beyond. Then the rocky portals
seemed to close, and the spray flew like smoke along the unbroken
ramparts. The ship was put about, and again the magic entrance opened
and shut.
"I knows the channel, sir," said Tom Bent. "Ye needn't wait for no
duff-headed pilot."
So the stout ship went 'round again, with a brisk shouting of men at the
braces and a booming of canvas aloft. Her colours flew bravely in the
sunlight, answering the colours of the fort and the battery on Signal
Hill. She raced at the towering cliff as if she would try to overthrow
it with her cocked-up bowsprit. Even Kingswell caught his breath.
Beatrix looked away, so fearful was the sight of the unbroken rock that
seemed to swim toward them with a voice of thunder and the smoking surf
along its foot. Ouenwa wondered if Tom Bent were mad. But the boatswain
gripped the big tiller, and squinted under the yards, and cocked an eye
aloft at the flags and men on the cliff. Then, of a sudden, the narrow
passage of green water, spray-fringed, opened under their bows, and the
walls of rock slid aside and let them in.