THE BERMUDA TRADER
There is a great deal of the humdrum and monotonous in the day after
day life and work upon a ship at sea. Even if the ship is a cruiser
and if there is a continuous watching for and study of all the other
sails that appear, that too may grow dull and tiresome.
There were many days of such unprofitable watching from the outlooks of
the _Noank_, after her first unexpected good fortune. She had somehow
failed to overtake that sought-for Porto Rico merchantman. The gale
had favored an escape, and so had the delay occasioned by the pursuit
and capture of the _Spencer_. Since then, carrying all the sail the
varying winds would let him, Captain Avery had sailed persistently on,
hoping for that prize or for another as good. There had been topsails
reported, from time to time, between him and the horizon, and from two,
at least, of those, he had cautiously sheered away, not liking their
very excellent "cut." There might be tiers of dangerous guns away down
below them and he did not want any more guns,--heavy ones.
"I said," he remarked, a little dolefully, "that I'd foller that
sugar-boat all the way to Liverpool, and I've only 'bout half done it.
I'm goin' ahead. There's no use in tryin' back toward Cuba, now.
We'll take a look at the British coast, pretty soon; France, too, and
Ireland, maybe Holland. We'll see what's to be had in the channels."
Everybody on board was likely to be satisfied with that decision,
especially the British prisoners from the _Spencer_. As for these, the
sailor part of them were already on very good terms with their captors,
not caring very much how or in what kind of craft they were to find
their way back to England. They were a happy-go-lucky lot of
foremastmen with strong prejudices, of course, against all Yankee
rebels, but with thoroughly seamanlike ideas that they had no right to
be sulky over the ordinary chances of war. They had not really lost
much, and their main cause of complaint was their very narrow quarters
on board the _Noank_. They had not the least idea that a change in
this respect was only a little ahead of them, but a great improvement
was coming.
Day had followed day, and the ocean seemed to be in a manner deserted.
A feeling of disappointment seemed to be growing in the mind of Captain
Avery, and he had half forgotten how very good a prize the _Spencer_
had been.
"This 'ere is dreadful!" he declared. "I'm afraid we're not goin' to
make a dollar. What few sails we've sighted have all been Dutch or
French. I want a look at the red-cross flag again."
"Well, yes," thought Guert, "but I guess he doesn't want to see it on a
man-o'-war. I feel a good deal as he does, though. I'll get Vine to
lend me a glass. I've hardly had a chance to play lookout."
Vine let him have the telescope, of course, but Up-na-tan and Coco came
at once to see what he would do with it. He pulled it out to its
length and began to peer across the surrounding ocean.
"Ugh!" said Up-na-tan. "Boy fool! No stay on deck. Go up mast.
Maintop. Then mebbe see something. No good eye!"
"Git up aloft, Guert!" added Coco. "Never mine ole redskin. Think he
go bline, pretty soon. Can't see lobster ship."
That may have referred to the fact that they had served as lookouts,
that morning, until they were weary of it, and Up-na-tan had lost his
temper. They grinned discontentedly as they saw their young friend go
aloft. He had now become well accustomed to high perches, and was
beginning to regard himself as an experienced sailor for that kind of
small cruiser. He felt very much at home in the maintop, and even
Captain Avery glanced up at him approvingly.
"He must learn how," he remarked, as he saw Guert square himself in his
narrow coop and adjust the telescope.
"Ugh!" suddenly exclaimed the Indian. "Boy see! Wish ole chief up
there heself."
The others had not noticed so closely, and Guert was not apparently
excited. He was gazing steadily in one direction, however, instead of
hunting here and there, as he had done at first.
"Isn't a telescope wonderful?" he was thinking. "It brings that flag
close up. I can see that her foremast is gone. That looks like
another sail, away off beyond her. More than one of 'em. Maybe it's a
fleet."
A lurch of the _Noank_ compelled him to lower his glass and grasp a
rope, while he leaned over to shout down his wonderful discoveries.
"Hurrah!" yelled Vine. "Good for Guert!"
"Hard a-lee, then!" roared Captain Avery to the man at the helm.
"Ready about! Strange sail to looard! Up-na-tan, that long gun!
Clear for action!"
It was all very well for him to shout rapid orders and for the crew to
bring up powder and shot so eagerly, and get the schooner ready for a
fight. It was also well for the captain to go aloft and take the glass
himself. He could see more than Guert could. But what was the good of
it all when the wind was dying?
There was hardly air enough to keep the sails from flapping. A
schooner could do better than a square-rigged vessel under such
circumstances, but that wind was an aggravating trial to a ship-load of
excited privateersmen.
Captain McGrew had been permitted to come on deck, and Guert, as he
reached the deck from aloft, was half sure that he had heard the
Englishman chuckling maliciously, then heard him mutter:--
"The Bermuda ships never sail home without a strong convoy. These
chaps'll catch it."
When Captain Avery himself came down and the opinion of the _Spencer's_
captain was reported to him, he said:--
"From Bermuda, eh? That's likely. We're not far out o' their course,
I'd say. Who cares for convoy? I don't. This feller nighest us is
crippled and left behind. If it wasn't for this calm, my boy--"
There he became silent and stood still, staring hungrily to leeward.
Perhaps his manifest vexation was enjoyed by his English prisoner, but
Captain McGrew very soon put on a graver face, for the sharp-nosed
_Noank_ was all the while slipping along, and the ship she was steering
toward was almost as good as standing still. So must have been any
heavier craft, warlike or otherwise.
An hour went by, another, and the deceptive British merchant flag still
fluttered from the rigging of the _Noank_. The strange sail had made
no attempt to signal her and there had been a reason for it. She had
her own sharp-eyed lookouts, and these and her officers had been
studying this schooner to windward of them.
"She's American built," they had said of her. "Most likely she's one
of the _Solway's_ prizes. The old seventy-four has picked up a dozen
of them. She ought not to be coming this way though. She's running
out of her course."
There was something almost suspicious about it, they thought. It might
be all right, but they were at sea in war time, and there was no
telling what might happen.
"She'll be within hail inside of five minutes," they said at last.
"We've signalled her now, and she doesn't pay us any attention. It
looks bad. Her lookouts haven't gone blind."
Not at all. Captain Avery was anything but shortsighted. His glass
had recently informed him that a huge hulk of some sort, only the
topsails of which had been seen at first, was steadily drifting nearer.
"Answer no hail!" he had ordered. "We must board her without firing a
gun."
Not for firing, therefore, but for show only, the pivot-gun threw off
its tarpaulin disguise, and the broadside sixes ran their threatening
brass noses out at the port-holes, while the British flag came down and
the stars and stripes went up.
"Heave to, or I'll sink you!" was the first hail of Captain Avery.
"What ship's that?"
"_Sinclair_, Bermuda, Captain Keller. Cargo and passengers. We
surrender!" came quickly back. "We are half disabled now.
Short-handed."
"All right," said the captain. "We won't hurt you. We'll grapple and
board."
The _Sinclair_ was more than twice the size of the _Noank_. She
carried a few good-looking guns, too. The grappling irons were thrown;
the two hulls came together; the American boarders poured over her
bulwarks, pike and cutlass in hand, ready for a fight. All they saw
there to meet them, however, was not more than a score of sailors, of
all sorts, and a mob of passengers, aft. Some of these were weeping
and clinging to each other as if they had seen a pack of wolves coming.
"I'm Captain Keller," said the nearest of the Englishmen. "You're too
many for us. We couldn't even man the guns. Five men on the sick
list."
He seemed intensely mortified at his inability to show fight, and he
instantly added:--
"Besides, man alive! six Bermuda planters and their families! They all
expect that you're going to make 'em walk the plank."
"That's jest what we'll do!" replied Captain Avery. "We'll cut their
throats first, to make 'em stop their music. I'll tell you what,
though. I've a lot of English fellers that I want to get rid of. No
use to me. You can have 'em, if you'll be good. Captain McGrew, fetch
your men over into this 'ere 'Mudian! I don't want her."
"All right! We're coming!" called back the suddenly delighted
ex-skipper of the _Spencer_. "What luck this is!"
"Now, Captain Keller," said Avery, "we'll search for cash and anything
else we want. Are you leakin'?"
"No," said the Englishman, "we're tight enough. We were damaged in a
gale, that's all. There's one of our convoy, off to looard,--the old
_Solway_. She lost a stick, too."
"We won't hurt her," said Avery. "What did that old woman yell for?"
"Why," said Keller, "one o' those younkers told her you meant to burn
the ship and sell her to the Turks. But the best part of our cargo,
for your taking, is coming up from the hold."
The two grim old salts perfectly understood each other's dry humor, and
Keller's orders had been given without waiting for explanations.
"Hullo!" said Avery. "Well, yes, I'd say so! There they come! How
many of 'em?"
"Forty-seven miserable Yankees," said Keller. "The _Solway_ took 'em
out of a Baltimore clipper and another rebel boat. She stuck 'em in on
us to relieve her own hold. They were to be distributed 'mong the
Channel fleet, maybe. You may have 'em all. It's a kind of fair
trade, I'd say."
At that moment the two ships were ringing with cheers. The _Spencer_
Englishmen, the short-handed crew of the _Sinclair_, and, most
uproariously of all, the liberated American sailors, who were pouring
up from the hold, let out all the voices they had. It was an
extraordinary scene to take place on the deck of a vessel just captured
by bloodthirsty privateers. The women and children ceased their
crying, and then the men passengers came forward to find out what was
the matter. Ten words of explanation were given, and then even they
were laughing merrily. The dreaded pirate schooner had only brought
the much needed supply of sailors, and there was no real harm in her.
A search below for cash and other valuables of a quickly movable
character was going forward with all haste, nevertheless, while the
liberated tars of both nations transferred themselves and their effects
to either vessel.
"Not much cash," said Captain Avery, "but I've found a couple of extra
compasses and a prime chronometer that I wanted. The prisoners are the
best o' this prize, and how I'm to stow 'em and quarter 'em, I don't
exactly know. We must steer straight for Brest, I think."
"Captain," said Guert, coming to him a little anxiously, "off to
looard! Boats!"
The captain was startled.
"Boats? From the seventy-four?" he exclaimed. "That means mischief!
All hands on board the _Noank_! Call 'em up from below! Tally! Don't
miss a man! Drop all you can't carry!"
The skipper of the _Sinclair_ was looking contemptuously at his
bewildered passengers.
"The whimperingest lot I ever sailed with," he remarked of them; and
then he sang out, to be heard by all: "Captain Avery! Did you say you
were going to scuttle my ship, or set her afire?"
"Both!" responded the captain. "Jest as soon's I get good and ready.
I'll show ye!"
"You bloodthirsty monster!" burst from one of the older ladies. "All
of you Americans are pirates! Worse than pirates!"
"Fact, madam!" said he; "but then you don't know how good we are, too.
I'm a kind of angel, myself. Look out yonder, though! See that lot o'
pirate boats from the _Solway_? The captain o' that tub is a
bloodthirsty monster! He eats children, ye know. He's a reg'lar
Englishman!"
"You brute!" she said; and then, as the commander of the _Noank_ was
going over the rail, she added, more calmly; "Why! what an old fool I
am! The Americans are only in a hurry to get away. Our boats are
coming after 'em, and then they'll all be hung."
"That's it, madam," said Captain Keller. "They're going to get 'em,
too. What I care for most is that we've hands enough now to repair
damages, so we can get you all to Liverpool."
Off swung the terrible privateer, her much increased ship's company
sending back a round of cheers as she did so. A light puff of air
began to fill the limp sails of the _Sinclair_, and she, too, gathered
headway.
"Wind come a little more," said Up-na-tan, thoughtfully. "No fight
boat. No hurt 'Muda ship. No sink her."
The captain overheard him, and he broke out into a hearty laugh.
"No, you old scalper," he said. "I'm a Connecticut man, I am. I can't
bear to see anything like wastage. What's the use o' burnin' a ship
you can't keep? It's a thing I couldn't do."
"No take her, anyhow," said the Indian. "Ole tub too slow. Lobster
ship take her back right away. Ugh! Bad wind!"
Very bad indeed was that light breeze, and away yonder were the boats
of the _Solway_ coming steadily along in a well-handled line.
"They're dangerous looking, sir," said Groot, the Dutch ex-pirate,
after a study of them through a glass. "Two of them carry boat guns.
Strong crews. I'd not like to be boarded by them."
"We won't let 'em board," said the captain. "Thank God, we've a good
deal more'n a hundred men now. I guess Keller'll warn 'em how strong
we are. That may hold 'em back."
It was a schooner wind, and the _Noank_ was going along, but she was
not travelling so fast as were the vigorously pulled boats. It was a
lesson in sea warfare to watch them and see how perfect was their
discipline and the oar-training of their crews.
"That's the reason," remarked Captain Avery, "why England rules the
sea. We'll have a navy, some day, and we'll beat 'em at their own
teachin's."
The rescued prisoners had been having a hard time of it in the hold of
the Bermuda trader, and they were beginning to feel desperate now at
what seemed a prospect of being once more captured by the enemy. They
went to the guns, and they armed themselves like men who were about to
fight for their very lives. There was one piece that they were not
allowed to touch, however, for Up-na-tan himself was behind the
pivot-gun. He and Groot, in consultation, seemed to be carefully
calculating the now rapidly diminishing distance between the schooner
and the British boat-line.
This reached the _Sinclair_ speedily, and its delay there was only long
enough for reports and explanations.
"That's her armament, is it?" the lieutenant in command had said to
Keller. "Stronger than I expected, but we can take her. Forward, all!
She won't think of resisting us. Give her a gun to heave to!"
The longboat in which he stood carried a snub-nosed six-pounder, and
its gunners at once blazed away. They had the range well, and their
shot went skipping along only a few fathoms aft of the _Noank's_ stern.
"Father," exclaimed Vine, "it won't do to let that work go on. We
might be crippled."
"Give it to 'em, Up-na-tan!" shouted the captain. "Men! We won't be
taken! We'll fight this fight out!"'
Loud cheers answered him, but it was Groot, the pirate, who was now
sighting the long eighteen, and he proved to be a capital marksman.
"Ugh! Longboat!" said Up-na-tan. "Now!"
Away sped the iron messenger, so carefully directed, but not one
British sailor was hurt by it. It did but rudely graze the larboard
stern timber of the _Solway's_ longboat at the water line.
"Thunder!" roared the astonished lieutenant. "A hole as big as a
barrel! If they haven't sunk us!"
The nearest boats on either hand pulled swiftly to the rescue, but that
boat-gun would never again be fired. The other gun, in the _Solway's_
pinnace, spoke out angrily, and, curiously enough, it had been charged
with nothing but grape-shot. All of this was what Captain Avery might
have described as wastage, for it was uselessly scattered over the sea.
Loud were the yells and cheers on board the _Noank_ as her crew saw
their most dangerous antagonist go under water, sinking all the faster
because of the heavy cannon. Of course, the sailors whose boat had so
unexpectedly gone out from under them were all picked up, but not one
of them had saved pike or musket. The attacking force had therefore
been diminished seriously, and there had also been many minutes of
delay.
"Captain," said Groot, "I'll send another pill among them, whiles
they're clustered so close together."
"Not a shot!" sharply commanded Captain Avery. "I'm thinkin'! Men!
It's more'n likely there are 'pressed Americans on those boats. I
won't risk it. We must get away."
"Ay, ay, sir," came heartily back from many voices. "Let 'em go."
That was what saved the really beaten British tars from any more heavy
shot, and the _Noank_ was all the while increasing her distance. The
only remaining danger to her now was the mighty _Solway_, and her
sails, full set, could be seen and studied by the glasses on the
schooner.
"She's the first big ship I ever saw under full sail," said Guert to
Groot. "I've only seen 'em in port."
"You'd be of little good on her till after you'd served awhile," said
the Dutchman, in his own tongue. "It isn't even every British captain
that can handle a seventy-four as she ought to be handled."
Whoever was in charge of the _Solway_ now, she was sailing faster than
the _Noank_, and things were looking badly. So said one of his old
neighbors to Captain Lyme Avery, only to be answered by a chuckle.
"Jest calc'late," he added, quite cheerfully. "A starn chase is always
a long chase. They won't be gettin' into range for their best guns
till about dark. Then I'll show ye. Vine, make a barrel raft! Sharp!"
Up from the hold came quickly a dozen or so of empty barrels, and these
were carpentered together with planks so as to make a skeleton deck.
In the middle of this was rigged a spar like a mast, and the raft was
ready.
All the sailors believed they knew what was coming. It was an old,
old, trick, as old as the hills, but it might be the thing to try in
this case.
On came the stately line-of-battle ship, as the shadows deepened. She
was slowly gaining in spite of the _Noank_ having every inch of her
canvas spread. She would soon be near enough to fly her bow chasers.
If these were heavy enough, there would then be nothing left the
American privateer but prompt surrender. The next half-hour was,
therefore, a time of breathless anxiety.
"It's almost dark enough, now," said Captain Avery, at last, with a
cloudy face. "Over with the raft, Vine; I'm goin' to try somethin'
new."
Over the side it went and it floated buoyantly, with a large, lighted
lantern swinging at the tip of its pretty tall mast. At the foot of
that spar, however, had been securely fastened a barrel of powder, with
a long line-fuse carried from it up several feet along the upright
stick.
"If that light fools him at all," said the captain, "it'll gain us half
an hour and five miles. If it doesn't, why, then we're gone, that's
all. Now, Coco, due nor'west! Keep her head well to the wind. We
shall pass that seventy-four within two miles."
It was a daring game to play, taking into account British night-glasses
and heavy guns, to tack toward a line-of-battle ship in that manner.
On the _Solway_, however, there had been a feeling of absolute
certainty as to overtaking the schooner. She had been in plain view,
they said, up to the moment when her crew so foolishly swung out a
lantern. It was a mere glimmer, truly, but it would do to steer by.
It was many minutes afterward that an idea suddenly flashed into the
experienced mind of the British commander.
"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "No Yankee would have held up a light for us
to chase him by. That's a decoy! Hard a-port, there! The rebels'd go
off before the wind. They can't take in an old hand like me."
Precisely because the _Noank_ had not gone off before the wind, her
seemingly safest course, the _Solway_ was not immediately following
her. More minutes went by, and then there arose a storm of
exclamations on board the seventy-four.
"Captain," asked an excited officer, "did she blow up?"
"No," he gruffly responded. "That's only part of the decoy."
Not all his subordinates agreed with him, however, and it was plainly
his duty to carry his ship past the place of the now vanished light and
of so tremendous an explosion. He did so grumblingly.
"I know 'em," he said. "It's only some trick or other. They're sharp
chaps to deal with, on land or sea. They're a kind of Indian fighters,
and they're up to anything. Do you know, I believe we've lost her!"
That was what he had done, or else Captain Lyme Avery had lost the
seventy-four, for when the next morning dawned her lookouts could
discover no sign of the _Noank's_ white canvas between them and the
horizon.