THE RACE OF THE GOSHAWK
A long day had passed and a dark night had come. The air of it was hot
and sultry over all the regions around the Gulf of Mexico. Something
appeared to be weighing it down, as if it might be loaded with the great
events which were about to come.
It was gloomy enough at and around the besieged American fort on the
Texas side of the Rio Grande, but every now and then the darkness and
the silence were broken by the flashes and thunders of the Mexican
artillery, and the responses of the cannon of the bravely defended
fortress. This was already partly in ruins, and the besiegers had good
reasons for their expectation that in due season they were to see the
Stars and Stripes come down from the shattered rampart. It did not seem
to them at all possible that the small force under General Taylor,
twenty miles away at the seaside, could cut through overwhelming
numbers to the relief of the garrison.
It was just as dark in the American camp on the coast, but there were
many campfires burning, and by the light of these and numberless
lanterns there were busy preparations making for the forward march,
which was to begin in the morning. There was an immense amount of
anxiety in the minds of all the Americans who were getting ready, but it
was only on account of the fort and garrison, for that little army had a
remarkable degree of confidence in its own fighting capacity.
It is never as dark on the land, apparently, as it is at sea, where even
the lights hung out by a ship seem to make all things darker, except the
white crests of the billows. One ship's lantern, however, was so hung
that it threw down a dim light upon a pair who were sitting on the deck
near the stern.
"Senor Zuroaga," said one of them, "I wish it was daylight."
"So do I," responded his companion, with hardly a trace of foreign
accent. "The storm's nearly over, but I had so much on my mind that I
could not sleep. The fact is, I came up to try and make up my mind where
we are. I must reach Vera Cruz before Santa Anna does, if I can. If I
do not, I may be shot after landing. I shall be safer, too, after
President Paredes has marched with his army for the Rio Grande. So I
hope for war. Anyhow, the commander at Vera Cruz is a friend of mine."
"I guess I understand," said Ned. "I heard what you said about the way
things are going. But what did you mean about our being in the Nicholas
Channel? What has that got to do with it?"
"Talk Spanish!" replied the senor, with whom the boy appeared to be upon
good terms. "I do not want any of those sailors to understand me, though
I'm very glad that you can. How did that happen?"
"Well," said Ned, "father's been all his life in the Cuban and Mexican
trade, and I'm to grow up into it. I can't remember just when they began
to teach me Spanish. I was thinking about the war, though. If it's
coming, I want to see some of the fighting."
"You may see more than you will like," said his friend in his own
tongue. "Now, as to where we are, remember your geography."
"I can remember every map in it," said Ned, confidently.
"Good!" said the senor. "Now! You know that the Gulf Stream runs along
the coast of Florida. Our road from Liverpool to the gulf was to have
taken us by that way. Instead of that, we came around below the Bahama
Islands, and here we are off the north coast of Cuba. Captain Kemp's
reason is that there might be too many American cruisers along the
Florida coast, and he does not care to be stopped by one of them, if the
war has already begun. We would not be allowed to go any further."
"I see," said Ned. "Of course not. They would stop us, to keep us from
being captured by the Mexicans when we got to Vera Cruz."
"Not exactly," said the senor, half laughing, "but it might cost your
father and his partners their ship and cargo. That is the secret the
sailors are not to know. Away up northward there, a hundred miles or so,
are the Florida Keys, and among them is the United States naval station
at Key West. There are ships of war there, and Captain Kemp will not
sail any nearer to them than he can help. Ned, did you have any idea
that you were sitting over a Mexican powder-magazine?"
"No!" exclaimed Ned. "What on earth do you mean?"
"I think I had better tell you," said the senor. "I half suspected it
before we sailed, and I learned the whole truth afterward. The New York
and Liverpool firm that your father belongs to sent on board an honest
and peaceable cargo, but there was a good deal of room left in the hold,
and the captain filled it up with cannon-balls, musket-bullets, and
gunpowder from the English agents of no less a man than General Santa
Anna himself. It is all for his army, whenever he gets one, but it goes
first to the castle of San Juan de Ulua, at Vera Cruz. If war has been
declared, or if it has in any way begun, the whole thing is what they
call contraband of war, and the _Goshawk_ is liable to be captured and
confiscated."
"Phew!" whistled Ned. "Wonder how father'd like that! Anyhow, we don't
know there's any war."
"We'd be in trouble anyhow," said the senor. "But we are all in the dark
about it. We have been over three weeks on the way, and all the war news
we had when we started was nearly a month old. We can only guess what
has been going on. Here we are, though, in a storm that is driving us
along first-rate into the Gulf of Mexico. We may be four days' sail from
Vera Cruz in a bee-line, and the _Goshawk_ is a racer, but we may not be
able to make a straight course. Well, well, the captain will keep on all
the canvas that's safe, and we may get there. Hullo! the day is
beginning to dawn. Now our real danger begins."
He said no more, and Ned walked forward with something altogether new on
his mind. An American boy, crammed full of patriotism, and wishing that
he were in General Taylor's army, he was, nevertheless, by no fault of
his own, one of the crew of a ship which was carrying ammunition to the
enemy. He almost felt as if he were fighting his own country, and it
made him sick. He had an idea, moreover, that Senor Zuroaga was only
half willing to help his old enemy Santa Anna.
"I don't care if Captain Kemp is an Englishman," he said to himself, "he
had no business to run father and his partners into such a scrape."
That might be so, and perhaps neither Kemp, nor Zuroaga, nor even Ned
himself, knew all about the laws of war which govern such cases, but
just then there flashed across his mind a very dismal suggestion, as he
stared down at the deck he stood on.
"What," he asked himself, "if any accident should touch off those
barrels of powder down there? Why, we'd all be blown sky-high and
nobody'd ever know what had become of us. There'd be nothing but chips
left."
He tried not to think about that, and went below to get his breakfast,
while Captain Kemp ordered his sailors to send up another sail,
remarking to Senor Zuroaga:
"We must make the most we can of this wind. Every hour counts now. I'll
take the _Goshawk_ to Vera Cruz, or I'll run her under water."
"Have you any idea where we are just now?" asked the senor.
"Well on into the gulf," said the captain, cheerfully. "We made a
splendid run in the night, thanks to the gale. I hope it will blow on,
and I think there is no danger of our being overhauled until we are off
the Mexican coast. I wish, though, that I knew whether or not the war
has actually been declared."
"The declaration isn't everything," replied the senor. "If there has
been any fighting at all, American cruisers have a right, after that,
to question ships bound for a hostile port, and to stop and seize all
contraband of war. After goods are once seized, it isn't easy to get
them back again."
"Sail ho!" came down from aloft at that moment.
"Where away?" called back the captain.
"Northerly, sir. Looks like a shark, sir."
"Can you make out her flag?" was inquired, almost anxiously.
The man on the lookout plied his telescope a full half-minute before he
responded:
"Stars and Stripes, sir. Sloop-o'-war, sir. She's changin' her course,
and she's makin' for us, I reckon."
"Let her head!" growled the captain. "This bark'll bear more sail. Hoist
away there, men. Let her have it! Senor, there's one thing I'll do right
off. It may be our best chance if she should overhaul us."
He did not explain his meaning just then, but another sail went up and
something else came down. In a few minutes more, when Ned came on deck
again, he suddenly felt worse than ever. Not long before, when the sun
was rising, he had been on an American ship, with the flag of his
country flying above him, but now his first glance aloft drew from him a
loud exclamation, for he found that while below he had apparently been
turned into an Englishman, and away up yonder the gale was playing with
the Red Cross banner of the British Empire. He stared at it for a
moment, and then he made an excited rush for Senor Zuroaga. He might
have reached him sooner, but for a lurch of the _Goshawk_, which sent
him sprawling full length upon the deck. It did not hurt him much,
however, and as soon as he was on his feet, he blurted out, angrily:
"Senor! I say! Do you see that? What does it mean?"
The Mexican laughed aloud, but not only Ned Crawford but several of the
sailors were eyeing that unexpected bunting with red and angry faces.
They also were Americans, and they had national prejudices.
"You don't like the British flag, eh?" he said. "I do, then, just now.
An American cruiser would not fire a shot at that flag half so quick as
it would at your own."
"Why wouldn't she?" asked Ned.
[Illustration: "DO YOU SEE THAT? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?"]
"Because," said the senor, a little dryly, "the American skipper hasn't
any British navy behind him, ready to take the matter up. It's a
protection in case we can't outrun that sloop-of-war. The men won't care
a cent, as soon as they know it's only a sea dodge to get into port
with."
Sailor-like, they were indeed easily satisfied with whatever the captain
chose to tell them, and on went the _Goshawk_ as a British craft, but
she was nevertheless carrying supplies to the Mexican army.
Senor Zuroaga had brought up a double spy-glass of his own, and, after
studying the stranger through it, he handed it to Ned, remarking:
"Take a look at her. She's a beauty. She is drawing nearer on this tack,
but nobody knows yet whether she can outrun us or not."
Ned took the glass with an unexpected feeling growing within him that he
hoped she could not do so. He did not wish to be caught on board a
British vessel taking powder and shot to kill Americans with. As he put
the glass to his eyes, however, the sloop-of-war appeared to have
suddenly come nearer. It was as if the _Goshawk_ were already within
reach of her guns, and she became a dangerous thing to look at. She was
not, as yet, under any great press of canvas, for her commander may not
have imagined that any merchant vessel would try to get away from him.
There were two things, however, about which nobody on board the
_Goshawk_ was thinking. The first was that, while the American
ship-of-war captain had not heard the firing at the fort on the Rio
Grande, he was under a strong impression that war had been declared. The
other thing came out in a remark which he made to a junior officer
standing by him.
"It won't do!" he declared, emphatically. "I don't at all like that
change of flags. It means mischief. There is something suspicious about
that craft. We must bring her to, and find out what's the matter with
her."
The distance between the two vessels was still too great for anything
but a few signals, to which Captain Kemp responded with others which may
have been of his own invention, for the signal officer on board the
Yankee cruiser could make nothing of them. The _Goshhawk_, moreover, did
not shorten sail, and her steersman kept her away several points more
southerly, instead of bringing her course nearer to that of the cruiser.
"I see!" said her captain, as he watched the change. "She means to get
away from us. It won't do. As soon as we are within range, I'll give
her a gun. She may be a Mexican privateer, for all I know."
At all events, under the circumstances, as he thought, the change of
flags had made it his duty to inquire into her character, and he decided
to do so, even if, as he said, he should have to send one shot ahead of
her and then a dozen into her.
There is something wonderfully exciting about a race of any kind. Men
will make use of anything, from a donkey to a steamboat, to engineer a
trial of speed and endurance. Then they will stand around and watch the
running, as if the future welfare of the human race depended upon the
result. Even the _Goshhawk_ sailors, who had previously grumbled at the
British flag above them, were entirely reconciled to the situation, now
that it included the interesting question whether or not their swift
bark could show her heels to the cruiser. They were very much in doubt
about it, for the ships of the American navy had a high and well-earned
reputation as chasers. They might have been somewhat encouraged if they
had known that the _Portsmouth_, sloop-of-war, had been at sea a long
time without going into any dock to have her bottom scraped clean of its
accumulated barnacles. She was by no means in the best of training for
a marine race-course.
An hour went by and then another. The two vessels were now running on
almost parallel lines, so that any attempt of the sloop to draw nearer
cost her just so much of chasing distance. It might be that they were,
in fact, nearly matched, now that the wind had lulled a little, and both
of them were able to send up more canvas without too much risk of having
their sticks blown out of them. It looked like it, but the Yankee
captain had yet another idea in his sagacious head.
"Let her keep on," he said. "The old _Kennebec_ is out there, somewhere
westerly, not far away. That vagabond may find himself under heavier
guns than ours before sunset. Lieutenant, give him a gun."
"Ay, ay, sir!" came back, and in a moment more there was a flash and a
report at the bow of the _Portsmouth_.
Both range and distance had been well calculated, for an iron messenger,
ordering the _Goshhawk_ to heave to, fell into the water within a hundred
yards of her stern.
"That's near enough for the present," said the American commander, but
Captain Kemp exclaimed, in astonishment:
"They are firing on the British flag, are they? Then there is something
up that we don't know anything about. We must get away at all risks."
They were not doing so just now, although another change of course and a
strong puff of the gale carried the _Goshhawk_ further out of range. The
fact was that her pursuer did not feel quite ready to land shot on board
of her, believing that he was doing well enough and that his prize would
surely be taken sooner or later. Besides, if she were, indeed, to become
a prize, no sound-minded sea-captain could be willing to shoot away her
selling value or that of her cargo.
Noon came, and there did not appear to be any important change in the
relative positions of the two ships. At times, indeed, the _Goshhawk_ had
gained a quarter-mile or so, but only to lose it again, as is apt to be
the case in ocean races. She was not at all tired, however, and both of
the contestants had all the wind they needed.
Two hours more went slowly by, and Captain Kemp began to exhibit signs
of uneasiness at the unexpected persistence with which he was followed.
"What on earth can be the matter?" he remarked, aloud. "I'd have thought
she'd get tired of it before this--"
"Captain!" sharply interrupted Zuroaga, standing at his elbow, glass in
hand. "Another sail! Off there, southerly. Seems to be a full-rigged
ship. What are we to do now?"
"Keep on!" roared the captain, and then he turned to respond to a
similar piece of unpleasant information which came down from the
lookout.
"We'll soon know what she is," he remarked, but not as if he very much
wished to do so. "What I'd like to do would be to sail on into the
darkest kind of a rainy night. That's our chance, if we can get it."
It might be, but at that very moment the commander of the _Portsmouth_
was asserting to his first lieutenant:
"There comes the _Kennebec_, my boy. We'll have this fellow now. We'll
teach him not to play tricks with national flags and man-o'-war
signals."
The race across the Gulf of Mexico was now putting on new and
interesting features, but Ned Crawford, posted well forward to watch the
course of events and what might have been called the race-course, sagely
remarked:
"I don't know that two horses can run any faster than one can. We are as
far ahead as ever we were."
That would have been of more importance if the newcomer had not been so
much to the southward and westward, rather than behind them. She was, of
course, several miles nearer to the _Goshhawk_ than she was to the
_Portsmouth_, and neither of these had as yet been able to make out her
flag with certainty. That she was a full-rigged ship was sure enough,
and if Ned had been upon her deck instead of upon his own, he would have
discovered that she was heavily armed and in apple-pie order. At this
very moment a burly officer upon her quarter-deck was roaring, angrily,
in response to some information which had been given him:
"What's that? A British ship chased by a Yankee cruiser? Lieutenant, I
think the _Falcon_'ll take a look at that. These Yankees are getting too
bumptious altogether. It's as if they thought they owned the gulf! Put
her head two points north'ard. Humph! It's about time they had a
lesson."
There had been some temporary trouble with the flag of the _Falcon_, but
it had now been cleared of its tangle, and was swinging out free. It was
of larger size than the British bunting displayed by the Goshawk. It was
only a few minutes, therefore, before Captain Kemp had a fresh trouble
on his mind, for his telescope had told him the meaning of that flag.
"Worse than ever!" he exclaimed. "She'd make us heave to and show our
papers. Then she'd hand us right over, and no help for it. No, sir! Our
only way is to scud from both of them. Some of our English frigates are
slow goers, and this may be one of that kind."
He was in less immediate peril, perhaps, because of the determination of
the angry British captain to speak to the Yankee first, and demand an
explanation of this extraordinary affair. This it was his plain duty to
do, and the attempt to do it would shortly put him and all his guns
between the _Portsmouth_ and the _Goshhawk_. This operation was going on
at the end of another hour, when Captain Kemp's lookout shouted down to
him:
"Sail ho, sir! 'Bout a mile ahead o' the British frigate. Can't quite
make her out yet, sir."
"I declare!" groaned the captain. "This 'ere's getting kind o' thick!"
The weather also was getting thicker, and all three of the racers were
shortly under a prudent necessity for reducing their excessive spreads
of canvas. The first mate of the _Goshhawk_ had even been compelled to
expostulate with his overexcited skipper.
"Some of it's got to come down, sir," he asserted. "If we was to lose a
spar, we're gone, sure as guns!"
"In with it, then," said the captain. "I wish both of 'em 'd knock out a
stick or two. It'd be a good thing for us."
At all events, a lame horse is not likely to win a race, and the
_Goshhawk_ was doing as well as were either of the others.
Under such circumstances, it was not long before the _Falcon_ and the
_Portsmouth_ were within speaking-trumpet distance of each other, both
of them losing half a mile to the _Goshhawk_ while they were getting
together. Rapid and loud-voiced indeed were the explanations which
passed between the two commanders. At the end of them, the wrath of the
Englishman was turned entirely against the culprit bark, which had
trifled with his flag.
"We must take her, sir!" he shouted. "She's a loose fish o' some kind."
It was while this conversation was going on that Senor Zuroaga, after
long and careful observations, reported to Captain Kemp concerning the
far-away stranger to the westward.
"She is a Frenchman, beyond a doubt. Are all the nations making a naval
rendezvous in the Gulf of Mexico?"
"Nothing extraordinary," said the captain. "But they're all more'n
usually on the watch, on account o' the war, if it's coming."
It was precisely so. War surely brings disturbance and losses to others
besides those who are directly engaged in it, and all the nations having
commercial relations with Mexico were expecting their cruisers in the
gulf to act as a kind of sea police. Moreover, a larger force than usual
would probably be on hand and wide awake.
The day was going fast, and the weather promised to shorten it. Ned was
now wearing an oilskin, for he would not have allowed any amount of rain
to have driven him below. He and all the rest on board the _Goshhawk_
were aware that their pursuers were again beginning to gain on them
perceptibly. It was a slow process, but it was likely to be a sure one,
for the men-of-war could do better sailing in a heavy sea and under
shortened canvas than could a loaded vessel like the saucy merchant
bark.
"I'm afraid they'll catch us!" groaned Ned. "I s'pose they could make us
all prisoners of war,--if there is any war. Oh, I wish all that powder
and shot had been thrown overboard!"
It did not look, just now, as if the Mexican army would ever get any
benefit from it, for even the French stranger to leeward seemed to be
putting on an air of having evil intentions. Captain Kemp had made her
out to be a corvette of moderate size, perhaps a sixteen-gun ship, and
she would be quite likely to co-operate with the police boats of England
and America in arresting any suspicious wanderer in those troubled
waters.
Darker grew the gloom and a light mist came sweeping over the sea. Both
pursuers and pursued began to swing out lights, and before long the mate
of the _Goshhawk_ came to Captain Kemp to inquire, in a puzzled way:
"I say, Cap'n, what on earth do you do that for? It'll help 'em to
foller us, and lose us all the benefit o' the dark."
"No, it won't," growled the captain. "You wait and see. I've sighted one
more light, off there ahead of us, and I'm going to make it do something
for the _Goshhawk_. Those other chaps can't see it yet."
"What in all the world can he be up to?" thought Ned, as he listened,
but the cunning skipper of the bark had all his wits about him.
The lookouts of the men-of-war had indeed been taking note thus far of
only their own lanterns and the glimmer on their intended prize. They
may even have wondered, as did her own mate, why she should aid them in
keeping track of her. At all events, they had little doubt of having her
under their guns before morning. Senor Zuroaga himself sat curled up
under his waterproof well aft, and now and then he appeared to be
chuckling, as if he knew something which amused him. Half an hour later,
when all the lights of the _Goshhawk_ suddenly went out, he actually
broke into a ringing laugh. Her course was changed to almost due north
at that very moment. This would bring her across the track of the
_Portsmouth_ and within a mile of that dangerous cruiser's bow guns.
They might not be quite so dangerous, however, if her gunners should be
unable to see a mark at that distance through the mist. The fifth light,
dead ahead, now became itself only the fourth, and it was immediately
the sole attraction for the watchers in the rigging of the several war
police-boats. This stranger was going westwardly, at a fair rate of
speed, and its light was exceptionally brilliant. In fact, it grew more
and more so during an anxious thirty minutes that followed, but it was
the French corvette which first came within hailing distance, to receive
an answer in angry Portuguese, which the French officers could not make
head or tail of. Even after receiving further communications in broken
Portuguese-Spanish, all they could do was to compel the Brazilian
schooner, _Gonzaga_, laden with honest coffee from Rio for New Orleans,
to heave to as best she might until the next arrival came within hail.
This proved to be the British frigate, and her disappointed captain at
once pretty sharply explained to the Frenchmen the difference between a
two-master from Rio and a British-Yankee runaway bark from nobody knew
where. Then came sweeping along the gallant _Portsmouth_, and there was
need for additional conversation all around. Some of it was of an
exceedingly discontented character, although the several captains were
doing their best to be polite to each other, whatever derogatory remarks
they might feel disposed to make concerning the craft which was carrying
Ned Crawford and his badly wounded patriotism.
Far away to the northwest, hidden by the darkness, the _Goshhawk_ was
all this while flying along, getting into greater safety with every knot
she was making, and Captain Kemp remarked to Ned:
"My boy, your father won't lose a cent, after all--not unless we find
Vera Cruz blockaded. But our danger isn't all over yet, and it's well
for us that we've slipped out of this part of it."
"Captain Kemp!" exclaimed Ned, "I believe father'd be willing to lose
something, rather than have the Mexicans get that ammunition."
"Very likely he would," laughed the captain, "but I'm an Englishman, and
I don't care. What's more, I'm like a great many Americans. Millions of
them believe that the Mexicans are in the right in this matter."
That was a thing which nobody could deny, and Ned was silenced so far as
the captain's sense of national duty was concerned.
Hundreds of miles to the westward, at that early hour of the evening,
far beyond the path of the storm which had been sweeping the eastern and
southern waters of the gulf, the American army, under General Taylor,
lay bivouacked. It was several miles nearer the besieged fort than it
had been in the morning, for this was the 8th of May. There had been
sharp fighting at intervals since the middle of the forenoon, beginning
at a place called Palo Alto, or "The Tall Trees," and the Mexicans had
been driven back with loss. Any cannonading at the fort could be heard
more plainly now, and it was certain that it had not yet surrendered.
Near the centre of the lines occupied by the Seventh Regiment, a young
officer sat upon the grass. He held in one hand a piece of army bread,
from which he now and then took a bite, but he was evidently absorbed in
thought. He took off his hat at last and stared out into the gloom.
"The Mexican army is out there somewhere," he remarked, slowly. "We are
likely to have another brush with them to-morrow. Well! this is real
war. I've seen my first battle, and I know just how a fellow feels under
fire. I wasn't at all sure how it would be, but I know now. He doesn't
feel first-rate, by any means. Those fellows that say they like it are
all humbugs. I've seen my first man killed by a cannon-ball. Poor Page!
Poor Ringgold! More of us are to go down to-morrow. Who will it be?"
Very possibly, the list of American slain would contain the
announcement that a mere second lieutenant, named Ulysses S. Grant, had
been struck by a chance shot from one of the Mexican batteries.