MAJOR GORDON
The morning comes, but brings no sun.
The sky with clouds is overrun. —T. Buchanan Read.
A piteous fearful sight,
A noble vessel laboring with the storm. —Maturin.
It is time that we should say something of the young officer, who, as
the reader has suspected, is destined to play no inconsiderable part in
our story.
Major Gordon had been left an orphan at an early age, with but a small
competence, most of which had been exhausted on his education, so that,
on his attaining his majority, his whole property consisted of little
more than sufficient to purchase a library and support himself for a
couple of years. By assiduity in his profession, however, which was that
of the law, assisted by a natural gift of eloquence, he rapidly rose to
ease and distinction; and was fast taking rank, indeed, among the
eminent advocates of whom Philadelphia boasted then, as now, when the
war of Independence broke out. Like most other generous and heroic
spirits, he threw himself with ardor into the patriotic cause.
Abandoning his practice and the tempting offers it held out, he joined
the troops raised by the colony of Pennsylvania, in which he speedily
attained the rank of Major. Subsequently he had been attached to the
staff of General Wayne, and afterwards had been employed on several
delicate missions, where judgment and discretion were required as well
as courage. It was one of these latter tasks which had brought him to
the coast now. A cargo of powder was expected to be landed in the river,
and as it was much wanted at camp, he had been despatched to receive and
forward it to head-quarters.
There were as yet no signs of daybreak, when Major Gordon, who had slept
but indifferently, awoke and looked at his watch. By the dim light of
the solitary candle, he saw that morning would dawn by the time they
could get their craft ready; and accordingly, picking his way between
the rows of beds, he descended into the lower apartment, and proceeded
to arouse Mullen. The latter individual was awoke with some difficulty.
“Morning, is it, Major?” he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
“Why the night’s as black as a wolf’s mouth yet. Look at the
window and see for yourself.”
“But it will be daylight before we are ready. I’d trust my watch
sooner than my eyes, especially on a morning like this.”
“Well, I’m your man,” said Mullen, who, being now thoroughly
awake, sprang up with alacrity and proceeded to arouse his comrades, one
by one; carefully avoiding, however, disturbing the other sleepers, who
all slumbered heavily after their debauch.
In a short while the little band came forth and took their way, by the
light of a lantern, to the spot where Mullen’s craft was moored.
“What a storm it has been,” said Major Gordon. “I heard the rain
beating, the wind roaring, and the waters dashing, all through the
night. Sometimes I also fancied I distinguished signal-guns; but that, I
began to fear, was only a dream, since there’s no sign of them now.”
“It’s sartain none have been fired since we came out,” answered
Mullen, “for we’d have been sure to hear ‘em. The wind has lulled,
but the gale’s not over. There’ll maybe not much more rain fall; but
I shouldn’t be surprised to hear it blow great guns the better part of
the day.”
“I suppose the schooner would not be apt to come in, on such a
morning,” said Major Gordon, alluding to the vessel whose arrival he
was expecting.
“No, she’d keep an offing, while she has it. Her skipper is a good
sailor, and he’ll turn up, right and tight, though not till the
gale’s over.”
“Unless he’s been captured,” said the Major. “He should have
been here two days ago, and his delay makes me think, sometimes, that he
has been taken by the British.”
“Give yourself no consarn on that p’int, Major,” retorted Mullen.
“The schooner’s a clipper of a craft; none of your scows, made by
the cord and cut off in lengths to suit customers; but a ra’al beauty,
sharp as a nor’wester on a winter mornin’, and that can go into the
wind’s eye like a duck. The skipper, too, knows every inlet on the
coast, and all the shallows, so that if a cruiser was to follow him,
he’d lead the fellow aground in no time, and then giving him a shot,
to make fun of him like, set everything drawing on the opposite tack,
and leave him to get off as he could.”
By this time they had reached their craft, which was a half-decked boat,
with a single mast, of a description still frequent in those waters.
There was some delay in getting her ready for a start, and still more in
tracking her out of the small creek where she lay; but at last the
adventurers succeeded in gaining open water just as the gloom of night
was giving way to the dim, stormy day. The high wind compelled the crew
to close-reef their mainsail, and even with this mere shred of canvass,
the boat staggered along like a drunken man, laboring heavily in the
rough, cross sea.
“Heaven grant we may be in time,” said Major Gordon. “But this
long silence of the alarm guns, and this fierce wind, are ominous of
disaster.”
“It’s four chances to one that we’re goin’ on a fool’s
errand,” answered Mullen. “First, the ship’s probably gone down
before this; and second, if she hasn’t, her people are most likely
drowned; for, if neither of these had happened, we would have heard her
guns off and on through the night. Third, if she’s struck, it’s
probably on the outer bar, a mile from shore, where nobody can get at
her. Fourth, if even she’s in the very breakers, she’ll probably go
to pieces before we can do anything to help ‘em.”
“Surely,” said Major Gordon, “if she’s in the breakers, we can
save her people in some way.”
“There’s small chance of that,” was the answer. “You don’t
know this coast like I do, Major, or you’d hardly have insisted on
coming out. No boat could live a moment in the surf that must now be
beating on the shore. I’ve seen many a poor fellow hang in the
shrouds, in my time, for a matter of twenty-four hours or so; and that,
too, with a dozen or more looking at him all the while—yet he’s been
forced to drop into the sea at last, because no one could get to him. It
was only last January, that one of King George’s transports struck and
bilged in a snow-storm, on the beach right ahead of us; and not a soul
was saved. The coast was strewed, for miles, with dead bodies, some of
officers in uniforms, and others of common soldiers; and there were
women, too, among ‘em. I wasn’t on the beach myself, but from all
accounts it was dreadful to see. Once, howsomever, I knew three men to
cling to the cross-trees of a sloop, which had sunk in some twelve feet
water, and there they held fast, like dying men will, for two days and a
night. I could hear their cries all the while, for the wind blew strong
on shore; but they got weaker and faint-like, ‘specially towards the
first night; and on the second morning there was only one could be
heard.”
He paused, moved by the mere recollection, and then proceeded.
“His voice, too, as the day went on, got weaker, till about an hour
before sunset, and when at last the surf was beginning to go down, he
dropped quietly into the sea. The others had died hours before. So I
doubt if we can do any good, even if we find a wreck. It’s a bad
thing, too, Major, to see poor creatures in mortal agony, yet not be
able to help ‘em. You’ll wish you’d never come. But as you say go,
go we do.”
“Thank you,” answered Major Gordon, with a husky voice, deeply moved
by the sad narratives of the speaker, and almost convinced that he was
only conducting them to the threshold of another drama of the same
character. “But I could never again rest in my bed, if I didn’t make
an effort, at least, to see if there’s a wreck, and try what can be
done. I should be always hearing the boom of the alarm gun in my
dreams.”
The rain had now ceased, but a drizzling mist had set in, through whose
folds the dreary landscape looked more desolate than ever. The
slate-colored clouds, flying just overhead, drifted rapidly in from the
sea, and sweeping past, like the wings of gigantic birds seen in the
dusk of night, disappeared in the vague haze inland. As the boat beat
across the bay, the water flew crackling over her forecastle, often even
wetting Major Gordon and Mullen in the stern; while the parted waves,
bubbling and hissing by, whirled off behind in creamy eddies.
After awhile the southern edge of the open water was attained, when the
craft entered a labyrinth of comparatively narrow channels, winding
between salt-marshes. The black, saline mud of these marshes emitted a
pungent smell, as the waves washed along the banks; while the long
grass, which thickly covered their surface, whistled or rattled in the
gale. Occasionally, a gull was seen, screaming aloft, in spite of the
storm, now swept swiftly down the wind, and now slowly battling his way
up against the tempest.
“There it is,” suddenly cried one of the crew, and, as he spoke, he
pointed across the beach, along whose inner side the boat was now
coasting.
They were opposite where, at its narrowest part, sea. and bay approached
within a few hundred yards of each other; and, following the direction
of the man’s finger, Major Gordon saw a large ship, lying some
distance from the shore, with her masts gone and apparently deserted.
She lay, careened towards the south, at a right angle to the coast, so
that nearly every wave swept her for the entire length of her decks. At
first, as we have said, she seemed deserted. But, looking more closely,
Major Gordon discovered, under the lee of her weather side, and
sheltered by the high stern, two female figures, attended by a solitary
companion of the other sex.
“Luff, luff,” he cried to Mullen, who was steering. “She’ll lay
close alongside the bank, won’t she? Let go everything with a run.”
In a moment the craft rasped against the steep mud bank, and in another
Major Gordon had leaped ashore, and was moving towards the surf, leaving
the others to follow more at leisure.