“Hillo!” said Westbrook, “who’s skulking here?” and he pushed his foot
against a dark heap, huddled up under the shade of one of the guns. As
he did so, a slight, pale-faced, sickly-looking boy started up. “Ah!
it’s you, Dick, is it?—why I never before thought you’d skulk—there,
go—but you mustn’t do it again, my lad.”
The boy was a favorite with all on board. He had embarked at Newport,
and was, therefore, a new hand, but his quiet demeanor, as well as a
certain melancholy expression of face he always wore, had won him a way
to our hearts. Little was known of his history, except that he was an
orphan. Punctual in the discharge of his duties, yet holding himself
aloof from the rest of the boys, he seemed to be one, who although he
had determined to endure his present fate, was yet conscious of having
seen better days. I was the more confirmed in my belief that he had been
born to a higher station from the choice of his words in conversation,
especially with his superiors. His manner, too, was not that of one
brought up to buffett roughly against fortune. That one so young should
be thrust, unaided, out into the world, was a sure passport for him to
my heart, for his want of parents was a link of sympathy uniting us
together; and we had, therefore, always been as much friends as the
relative difference of our situations, on board a man-of-war would
allow. Yet even I, so great was his reserve, knew little more of his
history than the rest of my shipmates. Once, indeed, when I had rendered
him some little kindness, such as an officer always has it in his power
without much trouble to himself, to bestow upon an inferior, his heart
had opened, and he had told me, more by hints though than in direct
words, that he had lost his father and mother and a little sister,
within a few weeks of each other, and that, houseless, penniless and
friendless, he had been forced to sea by his only remaining relatives,
in order that he might shift for himself. I suspected that he did not
pass under his real name. But whatever had been his former lot, or
however great were his sufferings, he never repined. He went through his
duty silently, but sadly, as if—poor child!—he carried within him a
breaking heart.
“Please, sir,” said he, in reply to Westbrook’s address, “it’s but a
minute any how I’ve been here.”
“Well, well, Dick, I believe you,” said the warm-hearted midshipman.
“But there go eight bells, and as your watch is up, you may go below.
What! crying—fie, fie, my lad, how girl-hearted you have grown.”
“I am not girl-hearted always,” sobbed the little fellow, looking up
into his superior’s face, “but I couldn’t help crying when I thought
that to-night a year ago my mother died, and I crept under the gun so
that no one might see and laugh at me, as they do at every one here. It
was just at this hour she died,” he continued, chokingly, bursting into
a fit of uncontrollable weeping, “and she was the only friend I had on
earth.”
“Poor boy! God bless you!” said Westbrook, mentally, as the lad,
finishing his passionate exclamation, turned hastily away.
It was my watch, and as Westbrook met me coming on deck, he paused a
moment, and said,
“Do you know any thing about that poor little fellow, I mean Dick Rasey?
God help me I’ve been rating him for skulking, when the lad only wanted
to hide his grief for his mother from the jests of the crew. I wouldn’t
have done it for any thing.”
“No—he has always maintained the greatest reserve respecting himself.
Has he gone below?”
“Yes! who can he be? It’s strange I feel such an interest in him.”
“Poor child!—he has seen better days, and this hard life is killing
him. I wish he could distinguish himself some how—the skipper might
then take a fancy to him and put him on the quarter-deck.”
“What a dear little middy he would make,” said Westbrook, his gay humor
flashing out through his sadness, “why we havn’t got a cocked-hat aboard
that wouldn’t bury him up like an extinguisher, or a dirk to spare which
isn’t longer than his whole body.”
“Shame, Jack—its not a matter for jest—the lad is dying by inches.”
“Ah! you’re right, Parker; I wish to heaven the boy had a berth aft
here. But now I must go below, for I’m confoundedly sleepy. You’ll have
a lighter watch of it than I had. The moon will be up directly—and
there, by Jove! she comes—look how gloriously her disc slides up behind
that wave. But this is no time for poetry, for I’m as drowsy as if I was
about to sleep, like the old fellow in the Arabian story, for a matter
of a hundred years or more, or even like the seven sleepers of
Christendom, who fell into a doze some centuries back, and will come to
life again the Lord knows when,” and with a long yawn, my mercurial
messmate gave a parting glance at the rising luminary, and went below.
The spectacle to which Westbrook had called my attention was indeed a
glorious one. The night had been somewhat misty, so that the stars were
obscured, or but faintly visible here and there; while the light breeze
that scarcely ruffled the sea, or sighed above a whisper in the rigging,
had given an air of profound repose to the scene. When I first stept on
deck the whole horizon was buried in this partial obscurity, and the
view around, excepting in the vicinity of the Fire-Fly, was lost in
misty indistinctness. A few moments, however, had changed the aspect of
the whole scene. When I relieved the watch the eastern horizon was
shrouded in a veil of dark, thick vapors—for the mists had collected
there in denser masses than any where else—while a single star, through
a rent in the midst of that weird-like canopy, shone calmly upon the
scene: but now the fog had lifted up like a curtain from the seaboard in
that quarter, and a long greenish streak of light, stretching along for
several points, and against which the dark waves undulated in bold
relief, betokened the approach of the moon. Even as Westbrook spoke, the
upper edge of her disc slid up above the watery horizon, disappearing
and appearing again as the surges rose and fell against it, until
gradually the huge globe lifted its whole vast volume above the
seaboard, and while the edge of the dark canopy above shone as if lined
with pearl, a flood of glorious light, flickering and dancing upon the
billows, was poured in a long line of molten silver across the sea
toward us, bathing hull, and spars, and sails in liquid radiance, and
seeming to transpose us in a moment into a fairy land. Such a scene of
unrivalled beauty I had never beheld. The contrast betwixt the dark
vapors hanging over the moon, and the dazzling brilliancy of her wake
below was indeed magnificent. I looked in mute delight. The few stars
above were at once obscured by the brighter glories of the moon.
Suddenly, however, as I gazed, a dark speck appeared upon the surface of
the moon, and in another instant the tall masts and exquisite tracery of
a ship could be seen, in bold relief against her disc, the fine dark
lines of the hamper seeming like the thinnest cobwebs crossing a
burnished shield of silver. So plainly was the vessel seen that her
minutest spars were perceptible as she rose and fell gallantly on the
long heavy swell.
“Ah! my fine fellow,” I exclaimed, “we have you there. Had it not been
for yonder pretty mistress of the night you would have passed us unseen.
Make all sail at once—and bear up a few points more so as to get the
weather gauge of the stranger.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“How gallantly the old schooner eats into the wind,” I said, gazing with
admiration on our light little craft. I turned to the chase. “Has the
stranger altered her course?” I asked, looking for her in the old
position, but finding she was no more visible.
“No, sir, I saw her but an instant ago: oh! there she is—that fog bank
settling down on the seaboard hid her from sight. You can see her now
just to leeward of the moon, sir.”
I looked, and as the man had said, perceived that the dark massy bank of
vapors, which had lifted as the moon rose, was once more settling down
on the seaboard, obscuring her whole disc at intervals, and shrouding
every thing in that quarter in occasional gloom. For a moment the
strange sail had been lost in this obscurity, but as the moon struggled
through the clouds, it once more became visible just under the northern
side of that luminary. Apparently unconscious of our vicinity the
stranger was stealing gently along under easy sail, pitching upon the
long undulating swell, while, as he lay almost in the very wake of the
moon, every part of his hull and rigging was distinctly perceptible. Not
a yard, however, appeared to have been moved: not an additional sail was
set. Occasionally we lost sight of him as the moon, wading heavily
through the sombre clouds, became momentarily obscured, although even
then, from beneath the frowning canopy of vapors above, a silvery
radiance would steal out at the edges of the clouds, tipping the masts
and sails of the stranger with a soft pearly light that looked like
enchantment itself, and which, contrasted with the dark hues of the hull
and the gloomy deep beneath, produced an effect such as I have never
seen surpassed in nature or art.
Meanwhile the wind gradually failed us, until at length it fell a dead
calm. All this time the fog was settling down more heavily around us,
not gathering in one compact mass however, but lying in patches
scattered over the whole expanse of the waters, and presenting a picture
such as no one, except he is familiar with a tropical sea, can imagine.
In some places the ocean was entirely clear of the fog, while a patch of
cold, blue sky above, spangled with innumerable stars, that shone with a
brilliancy unknown to colder climes, looked as if cut out of the mists,
which on every hand around covered the sky as with a veil. At times a
light breeze would spring up ruffling the polished surface of the swell,
and, undulating the fog as smoke-wreaths in the morning air, would open
up, for a moment, a sight of some new patch of blue sky above, with its
thousand brightly twinkling stars, reminding one of the beautiful skies
we used to dream of in our infant slumbers, and then, dying away as
suddenly as it arose, the mists would undulate uncertainly an instant,
roll toward each other, and twisting around in a thousand fantastic
folds, would finally close up, shrouding the sky once more in gloom, and
settling down bodily upon the sombre surface of the deep. At length the
moon became wholly obscured. A few stars only could be seen flickering
fainter and fainter far up in the fathomless ether, and finally, after
momentarily appearing and disappearing, they vanished altogether. A
profound gloom hung on all around. The silence of death reigned over our
little craft. Even the customary sounds of the swell rippling along our
sides, or the breeze sighing through the hamper faded entirely, and save
an occasional creaking of the boom, or the sullen falling of a
reef-point against the sail, not a sound broke the repose of the scene.
The strange sail had long since been lost sight of to starboard. So
profound was the darkness that we could scarcely distinguish the
look-out at the forecastle from the quarter-deck. Silent and motionless
we lay, shut in by that dark shroud of vapor, as if buried by some
potent enchanter in a living tomb.
“Hist!” said a reefer of my watch to me, “don’t you hear something, Mr.
Parker?”
I listened, attentively, and though my hearing was proverbially sharp, I
could distinguish nothing for several moments. At length, however, the
little fellow pinched my arm, and inclining my eye to the water, I heard
a low monotonous sound like the smothered rollicking of oars that had
been muffled. At first I could not credit my senses, but, as I listened
again, the sound came more distinctly to my ears, seeming to grow nearer
and nearer. There could be no mistaking it. Directly, moreover, these
sounds ceased, and then was heard a low murmured noise, as if human
voices were conversing together in stifled tones. At once it flashed
upon me that an attack was contemplated upon us—by whom I knew
not—though it was probable that the enemy came from the strange sail to
starboard. It was evident, however, that the assailants were at fault.
My measures were taken at once. Hastily ordering the watch to arm
themselves in quiet, I ordered the men to be called silently; and, as by
this time the look-outs began to detect the approach of our unknown
visitors, I enjoined equal silence upon them, commanding them at the
same time, however, to keep a sharp eye to starboard, in order to learn,
if possible, the exact position of the expected assailants.
In a few minutes the men were mustered, and prepared for the visitors,
whether peaceful or not. Most of the officers, too, had found their way
on deck, although as it was uncertain as yet whether it might not be a
false alarm, I had not disturbed the skipper. Westbrook was already,
however, prepared for the fight, and as I ran my eye hastily over the
crew I thought I saw the slight form of Dick Rasey, standing amongst
them.
“Can you hear any thing, Westbrook?” said I.
“It’s like the grave!” was his whispered answer.
“Pass the word on for the men to keep perfectly quiet, but to remain at
their stations.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
For some minutes the death-like silence which had preceded the discovery
of our unknown visitors returned, and as moment after moment crept by
without betraying the slightest token of the vicinity of the assailants,
I almost began to doubt my senses, and believe that the sounds I had
heard had been imaginary. The most profound obscurity meantime reigned
over our decks. So great was the darkness that I could only distinguish
a shadowy group of human beings gathered forward, without being able to
discern distinctly any one face or figure; while the only sound I heard,
breaking the hush around, was the deep, but half-suppressed breathing of
our men. Suddenly, however, when our suspense had become exciting even
to nervousness, a low, quick sound was heard right off our starboard
quarter, as if one or more boats, with muffled oars, were pulling
swiftly on to us; while almost instantaneously a dark mass shot out of
the gloom on that side, and before we could realise the rapidity of
their approach, the boat had struck our side, and her crew were tumbling
in over the bulwarks, cutlass in hand. Our preparation took them,
however, by surprise, and for a moment they recoiled, but instantly
rallying at their leader’s voice, they poured in upon us again with
redoubled fierceness, cheering as they clambered up our sides, and
struggled over the bulwarks.
“Beat them back, Fire-Flies!” I shouted, “give it to them with a will,
boys—strike.”
“Press on, my lads, press on—the schooner’s our own!” shouted the
leader of the assailants.
Levelling my pistol at the advancing speaker, and waving our men on with
my sword, I gave him no answer, but fired. The pistol flashed in the
pan. In an instant the leader of the foe was upon me, having sprung over
the bulwarks as I spoke. He was a tall, athletic man, and lifting his
sword high above his head, while in his other hand he presented a pistol
toward my breast, he dashed upon me. I parried his thrust with my blade,
but as he fired I felt a sharp pain in my arm, like the puncture of a
pin. I knew that I was wounded, but it only inspired me with fiercer
energy. I made a lunge at him, but he met it with a blow of his sword,
which shivered my weapon to atoms. Springing upon my gigantic adversary,
I wreathed my arms around him, and endeavored to make up for the want of
a weapon, by bearing him to the deck in my arms; but my utmost
exertions, desperate as they were, scarcely sufficed to stagger him, and
shortening his blade, he was about plunging it into my heart, when a
pistol went off close beside me, and my antagonist, giving a convulsive
leap, fell dead upon the deck. I freed myself from his embrace and
sprang to my feet, just in time to see little Dick, with the smoke still
wreathing from the mouth of his pistol, borne away by the press of the
assault. In the next instant I lost sight of him in the melee, which now
became really terrific. Hastily snatching a brand from one of the fallen
men, I plunged once more into the fight, for the enemy having been by
this time reinforced by another boat, were now pouring in upon us in
such numbers that the arm of every man became absolutely necessary. It
was indeed a desperate contest. Hand to hand and foot to foot we fought;
desperation on the one hand, and a determination to conquer on the
other, lent double fury to our crew; while the clash of swords, the
explosion of fire-arms, the shouts of the combatants, and the groans and
shrieks of the wounded and dying, gave additional horror to the scene.
By this time our captain had reached the deck, and his powerful voice
was heard over all the din of the battle urging on his men. The fall of
the enemy’s leader began now to be generally known among his crew, and
the consequence was soon apparent in their wavering and want of unity.
In vain the inferior officers urged them on; in vain they found their
retreat cut off by the shot we had hove into their boats; in vain they
were reminded by their leaders that they must now conquer or die, they
no longer fought with the fierceness of their first onset, and though
they still combatted manfully, and some of them desperately, they had
lost all unity of purpose, and, struck with a sudden panic, at a last
overwhelming charge of our gallant followers, they fled in disorder,
some leaping wildly overboard, some crying for quarter when they could
retreat no farther, and all of them giving up the contest as lost. Not a
soul escaped. They who did not fall in the strife were either drowned in
the panic-struck flight, or made prisoners. The whole contest did not
last seven minutes. When they found themselves deserted by their men the
officers sullenly resigned their swords, and we found that our
assailants were a cutting out party from the ship to starboard, an
English frigate.
The man-of-war had not, it seems, discovered us until some time after
the moon arose, when her light, happening to fall full upon our sails,
betrayed us to their look-outs. The darkness almost directly afterward
obscured us from sight, and the calm that ensued forbade her reaching us
herself. Her boats were consequently manned, with the intention of
carrying us by boarding. The most singular portion of it was that none
of us perceived that the stranger was a man-of-war, but this may be
accounted for from her being built after a new model, which gave her the
appearance of a merchantman.
The bustle of the fight was over; the prisoners had been secured; the
decks had been washed down; my wound which turned out slight had been
properly attended to; and the watch had once more resumed their
monotonous tread; while at proper intervals, the solemn cry, “all’s
well,” repeated from look-out to look-out, betokened that we were once
more in security, before I sought my hammock. I soon fell asleep, but
throughout the night I was troubled by wild dreams in which Beatrice,
the ship’s boy, and the late strife, were mingled promiscuously. At
length I awoke. It was still dark, and the only light near was a single
lantern hung at the extremity of the apartment. My fellow messmates
around were all buried in sleep. Suddenly, the surgeon’s mate stood
beside me.
“Mr. Parker!” said he.