CRUISING.
Before sailing, the yellow band was painted out, for the pirates who
escaped would probably carry the news of what had happened over the
whole archipelago. Ten men were put on board each of the prizes, and the
_Tigress_ sailed up through the islands and escorted them to Smyrna,
where the pasha, after hearing an account of their capture, at once gave
permission for them to be sold as prizes, and as the news of the retreat
of the French had given a considerable impetus to trade, they fetched
good prices. As soon as this was arranged, the _Tigress_ sailed away
again. For some months they cruised among the islands, putting into
every little bay and inlet, boarding every craft found there, and
searching her thoroughly to see if there was any property belonging to
plundered vessels on board.
Once or twice she came upon two or three large craft together, and had
some hard fighting before she captured or sank them; but, as a rule, the
crews rowed ashore as soon as they saw the real nature of the new-comer.
Some thirty craft were sent as prizes into Smyrna or Rhodes, and there
sold, as many more were sunk or burned. They had, in no case, found
spoil at all equal to that which had been captured at Astropalaia, but
the total was nevertheless considerable. Once or twice they were
attacked by boats when anchored in quiet bays, but as a vigilant watch
was always kept they beat off their assailants with heavy loss. The rig
of the brig was frequently altered. Sometimes she was turned into a
schooner with yards on her foremast, sometimes into a fore-and-aft
craft; and as the time went on and captures became fewer and fewer, it
was evident that she had established a thorough scare throughout the
archipelago, and that for the time the pirates had taken to peaceful
avocations, and were indeed completely crippled by the loss of so large
a number of their craft.
The _Tigress_ had but one awkward incident during the voyage. The day
was bright and clear. The two Turks had been, as was their custom,
squatting together on the deck, smoking their pipes. Wilkinson and Edgar
were pacing together up and down, when the latter said:
"Look at these two native craft; they have both let their lateen sails
run down. I am sure I don't know why; there is not a cloud in the sky,
except that little white one over there."
They were passing the Turks at the moment, and Edgar said to one of
them:
"The two craft over there have just let their sails run down. What can
that mean?"
The Turk leapt to his feet with a quickness very unusual to him.
"It is a white squall!" he shouted. "Down with every stitch of canvas,
sir. Quick, for your lives! the squall will be upon us in five minutes."
It was Wilkinson's first experience of the terribly sudden squall of the
Levant, but he had heard of them and knew their danger, and he shouted
at the top of his voice:
"All hands take in sail! Quick, lads, for your lives!"
The boatswain's whistle rang loudly in the air, and he repeated the
order at the top of his voice. The men on deck, who had been engaged on
various small jobs since they came up from dinner, looked astounded at
the order, but without hesitation ran up the ratlines at the top of
their speed, while the watch below looked equally surprised as they
glanced upwards and around at the deep blue of the sky.
"Quick, quick!" the Turk exclaimed. "Let go all sheets and halliards!"
Wilkinson shouted, "Do the sails up anyhow, men."
Although the sky was unchanged they could see the light cloud Edgar had
noticed advancing towards them at an extraordinary rate of speed, while
a white line on the sea kept pace with it.
"Hard up with the helm--hard up!" Wilkinson shouted. "Hold on a moment
with those head sails; that will do, that will do. Let go the halliards;
down staysails and jib."
The sailors, now conscious of the coming danger, worked desperately. The
light upper sails were secured, the courses had been clewed up, but the
topsails were still but half-lashed when Wilkinson shouted again:
"Down for your lives! Down on the weather side; slip down by the
back-stays. You men to leeward, hold on--all hold on," he shouted a few
seconds later.
There was a dull roaring sound, rising to a shriek as the squall struck
the vessel.
Most of the men had gained the deck in safety, but many of those coming
down by the ratlines were still some distance from the deck. It was well
for them that they were on the weather side; had they been to leeward
they would have been torn from their grasp, whereas they were now
pinned to the rigging. Two sounds like the explosion of cannon were
heard. The main and foretopsails both blew out of their gaskets, bellied
for an instant, and then burst from the bolt-ropes and flew away, and
were speedily lost to sight. So great was the pressure that the brig was
driven bodily down until the water was almost level with the rail at the
bow, and it looked for a moment as if she would go down by the head.
One of the jibs was run up, but only to be blown away before it was
sheeted home. Another was tried, the sheet being kept very slack. This
held, her head lifted, and in a minute the _Tigress_ was flying along
dead before the wind. The storm-jib was brought up, hooked on, and
hoisted. This, being of very heavy canvas, could be trusted, and as soon
as it was set the other was hauled down.
"Thank God, that is over!" Wilkinson said, "and we have not lost a
hand."
By this time all the men had gained the deck.
"How long will this last?" Edgar shouted in one of the Turks' ears.
"Perhaps one hour; perhaps four."
"Let us have a look at the chart," Wilkinson said. "When we last looked
there was a group of rocks ten miles ahead, and at the rate we are going
the _Tigress_ will be smashed into matchwood if she keeps on this course
for long."
Edgar nodded.
"We must get trysails on the main and foremast," Wilkinson went on, "and
manage to lay her course a couple of points to the west. I wish we had
those upper spars down on deck, but it is of no use talking of that
now."
Wilkinson went down to the sail-room with the boatswain and four seamen
to bring up the two heaviest and strongest of the triangular sails.
"We must sheet them home before we hoist them," he said, as they
returned on deck. "We should never be able to haul the sheets in when
the sails once fill."
Twenty men went aft with them and commenced the task. The fore-trysail
was bent to some of the mast-hoops, and the sheet fastened to a cavel on
the port side.
"Port your helm a little, my man," Wilkinson said. "That will do, just
enough to keep the wind on the starboard quarter. Keep her at that, keep
her at that." Edgar had the sail ready to hoist. "Slacken the tack a
little. Now, half a dozen of you tail on here, and get ready to haul it
down as soon as the sail is up to its full height and the halliards
secured. Now, lads, tail on to the halliards. Away with her."
The sailors ran forward with the rope, but as the sail rose the strain
was so great that once or twice they were brought to a standstill. At
last the boatswain shouted:
"That is enough. Come back a little, but keep a firm grip of it. That is
right!" he shouted, as he twisted the slack of the rope over the cleet.
"Now, lads, down with the tack; down with it! Belay!"
The main-trysail was hoisted as successfully. Small as were the sails,
and slight the angle with the wind, the pressure brought the ship down
nearly to her covering-board. Wilkinson and the boatswain took their
places by the wheel.
"Keep her full, lads, but not a bit more. She will do at that. By Jove,
Blagrove," he said, as Edgar came aft and glanced at the compass, "that
was a narrow squeak! If you hadn't noticed those native craft lower
their sails and called our attention to it, we should have turned turtle
as sure as fate. We have got her snug now. If we were right as to our
position at noon we shall clear those rocks nicely."
"I don't think we can have been far wrong, by the position of the
islands. At the same time I will go up to the foretop," Edgar said; "I
shall be able to make them out some distance away, for, if you remember,
two of them are thirty or forty feet above the water."
"Mind how you go," Wilkinson said. "You had better take one of the men
up with you; you can hold each other on then."
Edgar went forward and told one of the best of the hands to go aloft
with him.
"All right, your honour!"
"It will be a tight job, but I daresay we can do it. Get a couple of
lines seven or eight feet long; we will fasten them under our arms, and
if a puff comes harder than usual we can twist the end round a shroud or
ratline."
In a couple of minutes both were roped and ready to mount. It was hard
work, and several times they had to use the rope to prevent their being
torn from their hold. But at last they reached the top, and fastened
themselves securely there. The scene was a singular one. Overhead was a
cloudless sky, somewhat paler in tint than it had been before the squall
burst. Below was a white mass of foam, which, from the height on which
they stood, seemed almost pressed level by the force of the wind. On
deck they had been drenched with the sheets of spray torn off the heads
of the waves as soon as they began to lift themselves, but here they
were above this, and there was nothing to prevent their looking round in
all directions.
"There are the rocks, sir," the top-man said, after they had been some
twenty minutes in their position, "over the lee bow, about two points
off our course."
"I see them now," Edgar said. "I thought we should have made them out by
the white foam round them, but it is white everywhere."
He shouted down to the deck, but it was some time before he could make
his voice heard above the roar of the squall. He pointed aft when at
last one looked up. The sailor ran aft to the helm, and called
Wilkinson's attention to Edgar. The latter pointed in the direction of
the rocks. Wilkinson waved his hand, and Edgar, then leaving the sailor
on watch, made his way down to the deck.
"We shall go within half a mile of them," he said, when he joined his
comrade.
"It is lucky that we looked at the chart as soon as we did," Wilkinson
shouted back, "for even with this rag of sail I should not have liked to
bring her nearer to the wind than we are now."
"I don't think it is blowing quite as hard as it was," Edgar said. "I
certainly got down more easily than I went up."
"I was thinking so myself, Blagrove, though there is not much
difference. I don't care, now that we are clear of those rocks, how long
it keeps on. Directly we pass them we can keep her off the wind again,
and there is nothing in our course then for over forty miles, and then
it is only a small island with deep water all round. I have just been
taking another look at the chart."
By another hour the strength of the wind had considerably abated, the
fore-staysail was reefed and hoisted, and before sunset sail was on her
again, and the hands were aloft preparing to get up fresh topsails.
At the end of six months, on their going into Rhodes they found that a
small gun-boat had arrived with orders from Sir Sidney Smith for them to
rejoin him.
"You have done exceedingly well," the latter said in his letter. "The
pashas both of Smyrna and Rhodes have written to me expressing their
admiration at the work that you have accomplished, and indeed your
report of the number of pirate vessels taken or destroyed speaks for
itself."
They were not sorry at the receipt of the order. During the past month
they had only made two or three captures, and these were craft of small
size, and they were well content to give up their independent life, and
return to regular duty. A week later they made out the _Tigre_ lying off
the Damietta mouth of the Nile. The man-of-war signalled to them to
anchor near her. As soon as they did so Wilkinson went on board.
"I am glad to see you back, Mr. Wilkinson," Sir Sidney said cordially.
"You have fully justified my confidence in your energy and discretion.
The pashas write to me saying that piracy seems to be completely
suppressed, and that it is two months since either of them received a
complaint of a vessel being chased or missing. Therefore, as I wanted
you here, where we have not half enough ships for the work, I thought it
as well to recall you. Your craft seems," he went on, as he surveyed the
_Tigress_ through his glass, "a good deal lower in the water than she
was?"
"Yes, sir, she is down nearly two feet and a half. I reported to you
that we gained a considerable amount of booty at Astropalaia, and of
course we have added gradually to that, but never had anything like so
good a haul. The hold up to the level of the main deck is full."
"Full of what, Mr. Wilkinson?"
"Miscellaneous cargo, sir--dried fruit, Manchester goods, and Eastern
goods of all sorts. I have not taken an exact inventory of them, sir,
for we were generally pressed for time, and I thought that the things
were less likely to be damaged if I did not open the bales. I really do
not know exactly what we have got, but there is certainly a good deal of
silk and a quantity of embroidered things."
"That sounds well, anyhow," Sir Sidney said, smiling, "but I am afraid
that it will not turn out so well for you personally as it ought to do.
You see the craft herself was a prize of the _Tigre_, and her officers
and crew are still borne on our books; therefore, although you were
detached on altogether independent work, you still rank as a tender of
the _Tigre_, and we all share with you, and indeed all your names have
been sent in on the list of those entitled to share in the prizes that
we have made here. As these have been generally laden partly with
ammunition and partly with luxuries for the use of the army, they were
for the most part valuable, and up to this time we calculate that a sum
of fifty or sixty thousand pounds will be shared."
"We quite understood, sir, that we should share with the _Tigre_ in all
that we captured. It would have been too bad if, in addition to our luck
in having an independent cruise on board the _Tigress_, we were to get
an advantage over our comrades in the way of prize-money. We have, as I
told you in my last report, received twelve thousand five hundred
pounds, the result of the sale of the thirty-two craft we sent into
Smyrna and Rhodes. It is in gold, and I thought that it would be better
for you to send off a boat for it than for me to bring it myself now.
What are we to do with the cargo, sir?"
"I must think that over, Mr. Wilkinson. You have not lost many hands, I
hope, while you were away?"
"No, sir, we have not done any very hard fighting. We had two men shot
in the attack of the pirates' hold at Astropalaia, and more than half
the crew have been wounded more or less seriously, but fortunately all
got over it."
"That is very satisfactory, Mr. Wilkinson. In giving me a full report of
your work, give a list of the casualties in each case. Some of the
people at the Admiralty seem to have an idea that the credit of any
affair depends largely on the size of the butcher's bill, whereas, in
point of fact, it should be exactly the other way, for not unfrequently
heavy loss means that measures were badly taken by the officers in
command, whereas a light one shows that the arrangements were all
excellent, and the work carried out without a hitch. I shall be glad if
you and Mr. Blagrove will dine with me. It is not very regular for you
both to leave the ship together, but there are no signs whatever of
change of wind, and one can reckon with some certainty here upon the
weather for at any rate twenty-four hours in advance. If you should see
any change before you come off, or any fall in the glass, Mr. Blagrove
must stay on board."
Wilkinson now joined his comrades, who were gathered a short distance
away waiting until he had finished his talk with Sir Sidney. "Come down
below, Wilkinson, and give us the news. We heard that you had taken some
prizes from the pirates; we want to hear all about it. Is Blagrove all
right?"
They were soon gathered in the cockpit. "I have not much time to stay,"
Wilkinson said, "and, before I tell you my story, I want to hear your
news, for beyond a few rumours current at Smyrna and Rhodes, we really
know hardly anything of what has taken place since we left you at Acre."
"We have had rather a dull time," one of them said; "the only excitement
was a fight between the Turks, aided by our boats, and the French. When
we returned here, we found that instead of being fifteen thousand
strong, as promised, the Turks on board their transports under Mustapha
Pasha were but five thousand strong, which was raised to seven thousand
by the two thousand we brought with us from Acre. On the 15th of July
they landed, attacked the redoubt and castle of Aboukir with great
pluck, and carried it by assault. A week later, we heard that Bonaparte
was at Ramanieh, and had no doubt that the Turks would soon have him on
them. Sir Sidney tried hard to get them to erect a strong line of works
across the spit of ground on which the fort stands.
"Had they done so they could, with the assistance of our boats and their
own gun-boats, have maintained their ground. The chief set to work at
once to endeavour to get things into shape. The Chiflick regiment, that
we had brought with us from Acre, was posted in the village at the end
of the spit. The Turkish gun-boats were ordered to take their places
directly the assault began on each side of the isthmus, so as to sweep
it with their fire, but when that time came the beggars would not move,
and did not arrive until it was all over.
"The Turks in the village were attacked several times, but made a
magnificent defence. We helped them with our guns as much as we could,
but could render them very little assistance. At last we saw that an
attack was to be made in earnest; peremptory orders were sent to the
Turkish gun-boats to go in and take up their stations, and our boats all
went in to the west side of the spit. Nothing could be worse than the
arrangements of the Turks. They had sent very little provisions and next
to no water on shore, and their troops were nearly half-mad with thirst,
and more than half-mutinous. However, they moved forward to the village,
and they there repulsed three attacks made by the French columns.
Probably no more attacks would have been made, if it had not been for
their beastly custom of cutting off the heads of the fallen. Lots of
them ran out of the village to do this, and this so infuriated the
French that they came on again with such a rush that they entered the
village with the flying Turks.
"The confusion was terrible, and the Turks were driven out. The spit of
sand was covered with fugitives, hundreds threw themselves into the
water and swam out to us. The castle, which, as you know, is a little
bit of a place, was crowded almost to suffocation, and thousands could
not get in. The fire of our boat guns kept the French back for a time,
and when at last the Turkish gun-boats got into position, they had to
fall back and make advances against the castle in a regular way.
Unfortunately Mustapha Pasha had been taken in the village, and the
garrison had no one to command them, still they resisted for two days,
and then surrendered, being almost mad with thirst, for, although we
spared as much water as we could, it was impossible for us to find
sufficient for six or seven thousand extra men.
"Our marines saved the castle the first day, Colonel Douglas landing and
taking command and restoring order, for the Turks were fighting fiercely
among themselves when we got in, and during the night he managed to send
off about a thousand of them to their ships. The whole business was
brought about owing to Mustapha Pasha not acting in accordance with the
advice that Sir Sidney had sent him to act against either Damietta or
Rosetta, as our ships would station themselves in the Bay of Aboukir,
and so threaten Alexandria that the French would not care to weaken
their force there by sending any considerable number of men to act
against the Turks. There, that is all that has happened. Now let us hear
your yarn."
Wilkinson gave a brief account of the trip of the _Tigress_.
"You see," he said, "we have not done much fighting; indeed, with the
exception of the first scrimmage at Astropalaia we can scarcely have
said to have had anything worth calling fighting at all. We picked up a
lot of small piratical craft, destroyed the majority of them, and sold
the others at Smyrna or Rhodes. We got altogether twelve thousand five
hundred for them, and as, of course, that will be shared by the _Tigre_,
we have done pretty well our share in the way of earning prize-money for
the ship. More, indeed, for the _Tigre's_ share of the prizes that you
have taken here won't come to more than fifteen or twenty thousand at
the outside. Besides that, we have got some booty on board the
_Tigress_, but what it is worth I have no idea, for we simply bundled
the things down below without opening anything. Still, no doubt it will
be enough to give you a few pounds a head."
As soon as he could get away Wilkinson returned to the brig. That
evening, at the admiral's table, he gave a much more detailed account of
their doings than he had done in his reports. When he had finished, Sir
Sidney Smith said:
"That attack upon the pirates' hold was extremely well managed, Mr.
Wilkinson, and does you and Mr. Blagrove great credit. You were very
brief in your account of it, and only said that a considerable amount of
booty, which had evidently been taken from plundered ships, was found
concealed, and that the more valuable portion was shipped on the
_Tigress_. I will come on board in the morning, and you can have a few
of those bales brought up on to the main deck, and we can see what is in
them."
A dozen bales were opened the next day; two contained European goods,
the rest Eastern manufactures, silks and embroideries, Turkish, Syrian,
and Persian carpets and rugs.
"That is enough!" Sir Sidney said. "Now, can you roughly give me an idea
what proportion of European goods, dried fruits, and what we may call
generally Eastern goods, you have?"
"There are about twenty tons of fruit, sir, thirty tons of European
bales, and fifty or sixty tons of Eastern goods. Of these, I should say
that two-thirds are carpets and rugs, we could pretty well tell these
from the others by the size and feel of the bales; the rest are, judging
from the few we opened, cloth for female garments--muslin, silks,
scarves, sashes, and embroidered goods.
"It is extraordinary how so great a collection could have been made."
"There have been a great many vessels employed in the making of it, sir,
and we may say that we have here the pick from at least a hundred,
perhaps several times that number, of captured craft of several sizes.
No doubt the pirates would, in all cases, put aside goods of this kind,
for although of no use to themselves, and no doubt very difficult to
sell, they would store them away under the idea that some time or other
an opportunity would occur of turning them into money."
"Well, there is no doubt that you have an extremely rich prize. I should
be afraid to give even an approximate calculation of what all this is
worth. Some of our East-Indiamen bring very valuable cargoes home; but I
should doubt whether any one ship ever carried as much costly
merchandise as you have stored here. I will think over how they had best
be got to England. The things will require careful handling, for if they
were consigned to an ordinary prize agent they might be sold anyhow and
for half their value."
On the following day the two midshipmen were signalled to come on board
the _Tigre_.
"I have been thinking your matter over, gentlemen," Sir Sidney said
when they had entered his cabin. "I have power to appoint a prize agent
in England. As a matter of fact I have not done so. Coming out here, as
I did, on a diplomatic mission, I had no thought of taking prizes. Those
we have picked up here I simply sent to the agent at Gibraltar, which,
by the way, is one of the very worst places one can send them to, as the
vessels are sold at ridiculous prices. Ordinarily Malta would be the
port we should have sent them to from here, but as it is still in the
possession of the French, Gibraltar is the only port in the
Mediterranean. Of course they might be sent to England; but there is the
difficulty of detaching men and officers, and the risk of their being
captured by French privateers, so that practically we are driven to
Gibraltar.
"Of course the prize court will have the disposal of the cargo, but I
will write to the head of the court, who is a personal friend of mine,
asking him to intrust the sale of the Eastern goods to your father, Mr.
Blagrove, saying that as he has been for years engaged in trade in the
East, and must therefore be acquainted with the value of these things,
is in the habit of sending Egyptian silks and so on to London for sale,
he must know the channels in which they could be best disposed of. Of
course the dried fruits and the English goods could be sold by the
court, but it would never do to throw such a quantity of Eastern goods
on the market at once. Among the prizes that have been taken is a smart
brig of about the same size as the _Tigress_. She was caught making for
Alexandria with powder and ball for the French army. Fortunately for us
her captain was not a first-class navigator, and so missed his mark by
about ten miles, and found himself, to his consternation and our
satisfaction, close under our guns.
"I was going to send her to Gibraltar to be sold. I do not think that
we can do better than buy her to carry home your cargo. I will call a
court of four officers to put on her the price they consider it probable
that she will fetch, which, I should say, if she were sold at Gibraltar,
would not be over eight or nine hundred pounds. You, Mr. Blagrove, can
buy her in the name of your father, and I will take your bill at three
months upon him. Then there is the question of the crew. As to the
officers, I can send you home, Mr. Wilkinson, with despatches. I have
not had an opportunity of forwarding any for some weeks now; and to you,
Mr. Blagrove, I can give three months' leave on urgent private business.
As to men, we have small craft coming over here constantly from Sicily
with fruit and fresh provisions, and I have no doubt that, with the
offer of good wages, you would be able to pick up ten or twelve men
without much difficulty.
"On board our ships there are, I should say, at least twenty men who
have been invalided by boards of doctors as being unfit for service,
either from the effects of wounds or climate, and this would be a good
opportunity for sending them home. Many of them are still fit for easy
work, and would, at any rate, counterbalance your Italian crew. Of
course I should formally take a passage for them in Mr. Blagrove's ship.
The prize mounts six guns, but I would advise you to keep well out of
the way of French privateers. Of course the final result of the sale of
the merchandise would have to be paid by your father, Mr. Blagrove, into
the prize court for division among those entitled to it.
"With the ship, as your father's property, the case is different; that
is his private venture. He will, of course, charge freight on the
merchandise, and he will get two or three pounds a head for taking the
invalids home. As he will certainly get double the price the brig would
fetch at Gibraltar, that and the freight would a good deal more than
clear all expenses, and he will of course have the usual prize-agent's
commission on the sales he effects. What do you think of that plan?"
Both the midshipmen were highly pleased with the proposal, and thanked
their commander very heartily for his kindness. A board of officers
assembled on the following day and assessed the value of the French brig
at £850, and Edgar formally bought her in his father's name for that
sum, and drew a bill upon him for payment in three months.
He had several times heard from him since he had entered on board the
_Tigre_, and in the first letter Mr. Blagrove gave a hearty approval of
the course that he had adopted, and said that a year or two at sea would
give him a thorough knowledge of ships and be a considerable advantage
to him in their business. The receipt of Edgar's first letter, and of a
heavy budget containing the account of his doings in Egypt from the day
on which he was left behind to that on which he sailed, had been an
immense relief to them all, for hitherto they had been in absolute
ignorance of what had taken place. His father, however, thought that he
had, even according to his own account, run a very needless risk in
taking part in the rising at Cairo, although he saw that, having for the
time become so thoroughly associated with the Arabs, it would have been
difficult for him to avoid acting with them when there was danger in so
doing.