SO the 23d was the last fair day that they had on that short cruise.
During the forenoon the wind held from nearly the same quarter—that is,
northerly and westerly.
The air was mild and pleasant; the day, like the day before, seemed
more like June than the middle of April.
Toward noon, however, the wind shifted around to the southward and
eastward, and the glass had a downward bearing. Tom saw, with a
troubled feeling, that the weather began to take an ugly sort of
a look. About nine o’clock Captain Knight gave orders to have the
vessel’s course altered to nearly due south.
At noon the observation showed their position to be about 35° 40′
north, by 71° west, with Hatteras about 210 miles distant, W. by S. on
the starboard beam.
A little before eight bells, Captain Knight came up on deck again, and
Tom, feeling anxious himself, looked out of the corners of his eyes,
to see if he could gather what the captain thought of the situation.
It seemed to Tom that he was not quite easy in his mind. He cast his
eyes aloft, and then looked around. He took a turn or two up and down
the deck, and then looked at the glass, which, as had been said, was
falling. Whatever he might have thought about the looks of things,
he said nothing. Tom had half expected an order to shorten sail, but
Captain Knight gave none such, and presently went to his cabin again.
Shortly after noon the wind was blowing from the northeast. It became
a great deal colder, and by four o’clock the sky was overcast by a
gathering haze, which, at last, shut out the sun altogether.
About this time they fell in with shifting banks of fog, blowing before
the wind, the like of which Tom had never seen before. They seemed to
drift in belts, and were no doubt raised by cold currents of air, for
a chill could be felt the minute the ship would run into one of them.
Every now and then the wind would sweep these banks away, rolling them
up before it, and for a little while there would be a clear space
around the ship for maybe a couple of miles or more.
At that time they were under all plain sail to top gallant sails, and
were booming along at a rate that could not have been less than ten
knots. Tom thought that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ might even have done
better than she was then doing, were it not that she labored in a most
unusual way for a vessel, in a wind no heavier than that in which she
was then sailing. There is no doubt that this came from the heaviness
of her spars as well as the ill stowage of her provisions and stores;
still she was doing well, and any one could see with half an eye that
it would be an uncommonly swift cruiser to whom the _Nancy Hazlewood_
would not be able to show a clean pair of heels, if the need should
arise for her doing so.
It was a little before the middle of the first dog watch, when there
happened one of the closest misses that Tom ever had of losing his
life. I most firmly believe that if any one beside Jack Baldwin had
been the officer of the deck, Tom Granger’s story would never have had
to have been told.
Jack was walking up and down on the poop in a restless sort of a way.
It was plain that he was anxious at the fog, as well he might be. At
one time the ship would be surging away across what seemed to be a
lake, with dull banks of snow all around, at another she would plunge
headforemost into whirling clouds of mist, so thick that the leaden sea
alongside could barely be seen; heaving as though it were something
alive, and the fog was smothering it.
Jack came to the break of the poop and looked over to where Tom was
standing, on the deck below. His black hair and beard were covered with
the dampness, so that he looked as though he had turned gray.
“Tom,” said he, “I wish you’d slip foreward and see that those men are
keeping a bright lookout ahead. Keep your weather eye lifted too, Tom,
till we’re out of the worst of this infernally thick fog.”
So Tom went foreward, as Jack had asked him to do, and found that the
two men who had been placed there since they had run into the fog were
keeping as sharp a lookout as could be wished for.
Just as Tom climbed up on the forecastle, they surged out into a clear
space, that was maybe two miles or two miles and a quarter from side to
side.
They had run pretty nearly across this stretch, and I recollect that
Tom was just lighting his pipe under the lee of the foremast. As he
raised his head and looked over the port bow, he saw a sight that made
the blood stand still in his veins.
_It was a man-of-war in full sail, looming up like a mountain._
It came out of the fog so suddenly, that it seemed as though the mist
had taken form from itself. It was bearing straight down across the
port bow of the _Nancy Hazlewood_, plunging forward as solemnly as
death. It could not have been more than six or seven ships’ lengths
distant, and the great sails bellying out like big clouds, shadowed
over the _Nancy Hazlewood_ as _she_ might have shadowed over a fishing
smack.
Ten seconds more and she would have been down upon them, and would have
crushed the little craft as though she had been made of paper. There
was a moment of silence as great as though every man aboard of the
_Nancy Hazlewood_ had been turned to stone. I remember that Tom Granger
stood with his newly-lighted pipe in his hand, never moving a hair.
The silence was only for an instant, though, for the next moment a
voice roared like a trumpet:
“Hard a starboard! Let go, head sheets and lee head braces!”
It was Jack Baldwin’s voice, and never did Tom hear it ring as it
did at that moment. It not only was heard through the ship, but it
pealed through it like a clap of thunder. Those below came tumbling
up helter-skelter, and the captain came running out of his cabin, for
there was a ring in Jack’s voice that told every man aboard of the ship
that great danger was down upon them. It seemed to break the stillness
around just as a stone dropped into a well might break the stillness
below. In an instant the braces were flung from the belaying-pins, and
the ship came up toward the wind without a second to lose. Before those
aboard of the frigate had gathered their wits she had passed alongside,
and so close that a child could easily have pitched a biscuit aboard of
the _Nancy Hazlewood_ from the decks that loomed twenty feet above her.
The whole thing was over in a dozen seconds, but those dozen seconds
are stamped on Tom Granger’s mind as clearly as though they were
chiseled in marble. Even now, though he is over eighty years old, he
can see that great frigate rising higher and higher as she surges
forward, towering over the little ship, while a hundred faces pop up
above the rail and stare down upon her decks. It was only a moment—a
thread of time—on which hung the chance as to whether she would clear
or not. There was a thunderous roar of the waters under the bow, flung
back in an echo from the wooden walls of the frigate; there was a
vision of open ports rushing by, and of scared faces crowded at them,
in spite of discipline; then the frigate was astern and the danger gone
past with her. But in that short moment of passing they saw enough to
make them know that she was a British cruiser.
I say again that if Jack Baldwin had not had the deck at that time
there would never have been any story to tell of Tom Granger, for if
Jack had hesitated only so much as two seconds, as I am afraid that Tom
would have done in his case, the _Nancy Hazlewood_ would have been run
down just as sure as that there is a sun in the heavens.
So the danger went by, and all was over in a quarter of the time that
it takes to tell it. The head-yards were braced up, the head-sheets
were gathered aft, the _Nancy Hazlewood_ stood away on her course
again, and the next moment plunged into the fog and was gone.
But, in the meantime, they had wakened up aboard of the frigate, and
just as the _Nancy Hazlewood_ ran into the bank they heard an order
shouted aboard of the man-of-war, sounding faint because of the
distance that the two vessels had now run:
“Weather head, and main; lee cro’ jack braces!”
That meant that the frigate was about to wear, follow down in their
wake and do that which she had so nearly missed doing a minute
before—finish up the Yankee.
Tom came aft, and, though he would have felt like knocking the man down
that would have said so at the time, his hands were cold and trembling
nervously. For the matter of that, Jack Baldwin’s face was whiter than
it was used to be. “A close shave, sir,” said he to Captain Knight, who
stood beside him; but there was a nervous tremor in his voice in spite
of the boldness that he assumed. Indeed, the only perfectly cool man
aboard was Captain Knight. He stood looking aft, as though he would
pierce the fog and make out what the vessel astern of him was about.
Presently he turned to Jack. “Did you not understand from that order
that he was about to ware ship, Mr. Baldwin?” said he.
“I think that I understood them to give such an order, sir,” said Jack.
Captain Knight drew out his snuff box and took a pinch of snuff. “I
understood it so,” said he, shutting the lid of the box with a snap
and sliding it into his pocket again. He stood for about a couple of
minutes looking, now up at the sails and now straight ahead; presently
he turned to Jack again.
“Bring her by the wind on the starboard tack, Mr. Baldwin,” said he.
“We’ll slip out of this neighborhood on somewhat the same course that
the Englishman held a few minutes ago, and leave him groping about here
in this infernal blindness for us.”
It seemed to Tom that Captain Knight had done a wise thing in taking
the course that he did to get away from the Englishman. If the fog
should lift, and they should find that the frigate had the weather
gauge, they might get into a nasty pickle, whereas this course would
give _them_ the weather gauge and every chance to get away.
After a while Captain Knight told Jack to set the fore-topmast stay
sail, and then, after some hesitation, to set the royals. It was quite
plain that he had made up his mind to crack on sail, so as to gain as
much to the windward of the frigate as he could.
The _Nancy Hazlewood_ was now sailing close-hauled, and was as pretty
a sight as one could wish to see. The wind was blowing stiffly, as it
had done for some time. It had not increased to any account, though the
scud was beginning to fly across the sky, and there was every prospect
of its blowing heavily before morning. So the _Nancy Hazlewood_ went
bowling along on this wind, her bows every now and then flinging a
roaring sea from her in an ocean of foam. She was careened over so that
the sea eddied around the lee scuppers, and her copper bottom showed
red in the green waters. On she went, bouncing from sea to sea, as a
ball bounces when it is rolled across the ground. The top-gallant masts
were bent like a bow, and the weather backstays were as taut as the
bow-string, those on the lee bowing out gracefully before the wind. The
cloud of sails were bellied big and round, and were as hard as iron,
and altogether, as was said, the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was as pretty a
sight as one could wish to see.
About two bells in the first watch Captain Knight gave orders that the
ship should be put about, and running two points free on the starboard
tack, stood off to the S.E.
This, as has been said, was one of the narrowest shaves that Tom
Granger ever had for his life, and as long as he shall remember
anything he will never forget that half-minute when the British frigate
was coming down upon them under full sail, with death at the helm.