(From the Pilot.)
By J. F. COOPER.
“Furious press the hostile squadron,
Furious he repels their rage,
Loss of blood at length enfeebles;
Who can war with thousands wage?”
_Spanish War Song._
We cannot detain the narrative, to detail the scenes which busy
wonder, aided by the relation of divers marvellous feats, produced
among the curious seamen who remained in the ship, and their more
fortunate fellows who had returned glory from an expedition to the
land. For nearly an hour the turbulence of a general movement was
heard, issuing from the deep recesses of the frigate, and the
boisterous sounds of hoarse merriment were listened to by the officers
in indulgent silence; but all those symptoms of unbridled humor ceased
by the time the morning repast was ended, when the regular sea-watch
was set, and the greater portion of those whose duty did not require
their presence on the vessel’s deck, availed themselves of the
opportunity to repair the loss of sleep sustained in the preceding
night. Still no preparations were made to put the ship in motion,
though long and earnest consultations, which were supposed to relate
to their future destiny, were observed by the younger officers to be
held between their captain, the first lieutenant, and the mysterious
Pilot. The latter threw many an anxious glance along the eastern
horizon, searching it minutely with his glass, and then would turn his
impatient looks at the low, dense bank of fog, which stretching across
the ocean like a barrier of cloud, entirely intercepted the view
towards the south. To the north and along the land the air was clear,
and the sea without spot of any kind; but in the east a small white
sail had been discovered since the opening of day, which was gradually
rising above the water, and assuming the appearance of a vessel of
some size. Every officer on the quarter-deck in his turn had examined
this distant sail, and had ventured an opinion on its destination and
character; and even Katherine, who with her cousin was enjoying, in
the open air, the novel beauties of the ocean, had been tempted to
place her sparkling eye to a glass, to gaze at the stranger.
“It is a collier,” Griffith said, “who has hauled from the land in the
late gale, and who is luffing up to his course again. If the wind
holds here in the south, and he does not get into that fog-bank, we
can stand off for him and get a supply of fuel before eight bells are
struck.”
“I think his head is to the northward, and that he is steering off the
wind,” returned the Pilot, in a musing manner. “If that Dillon
succeeded in getting his express far enough along the coast, the alarm
has been spread, and we must be wary. The convoy of the Baltic trade
is in the North Sea, the news of our presence could easily have been
taken off to it by some of the cutters that line the coast. I could
wish to get the ships as far south as the Helder!”
“Then we lose this weather tide!” exclaimed the impatient Griffith.
“Surely we have the cutter as a lookout! besides, by beating into the
fog, we shall lose the enemy, if enemy it be, and is it thought meet
for an American frigate to skulk from her foes?”
The scornful expression that kindled the eye of the Pilot, like a
gleam of sunshine lighting for an instant some dark dell and laying
bare its secrets, was soon lost in the usually quiet look of his
glance, though he hesitated, like one who was struggling with his
passions, before he answered—
“If prudence and the service of the States require it, even this proud
frigate must retreat and hide from the meanest of her enemies. My
advice, Captain Munson, is that you make sail, and beat the ship to
windward, as Mr. Griffith has suggested, and that you order the cutter
to precede us, keeping more in with the land.”
The aged seaman, who evidently suspended his orders, only to receive
an intimation of the other’s pleasure, immediately commanded his
youthful assistant to issue the necessary mandates to put these
measures in force. Accordingly, the Alacrity, which vessel had been
left under the command of the junior lieutenant of the frigate, was
quickly under way; and, making short stretches to windward, she soon
entered the bank of fog, and was lost to the eye. In the meantime the
canvas of the ship was loosened, and spread leisurely, in order not to
disturb the portion of the crew who were sleeping; and, following her
little consort, she moved heavily through the water, bearing up
against the dull breeze.
The quiet of regular duty had succeeded to the bustle of making sail;
and, as the rays of the sun fell less obliquely on the distant land,
Katherine and Cecilia were amusing Griffith by vain attempts to point
out the rounded eminences which they fancied lay in the vicinity of
the deserted mansion of St. Ruth. Barnstable, who had resumed his
former station in the frigate, as her second lieutenant, was pacing
the opposite side of the quarter-deck, holding under his arm the
speaking-trumpet, which denoted that he held the temporary control of
the motions of the ship, and inwardly cursing the restraint that kept
him from the side of his mistress. At this moment of universal quiet,
when nothing above low dialogues interrupted the dashing of the waves
as they were thrown lazily aside by the bows of the vessel, the report
of a light cannon burst out of the barrier of fog, and then rolled by
them on the breeze, apparently vibrating with the rising and sinking
of the waters.
“There goes the cutter!” exclaimed Griffith, the instant the sound was
heard.
“Surely,” said the captain, “Somers is not so indiscreet as to scale
his guns, after the caution he has received!”
“No idle scaling of guns is intended there,” said the Pilot, straining
his eyes to pierce the fog, but soon turning away in disappointment at
his inability to succeed, “that gun is shotted, and has been fired in
the hurry of a sudden signal! can your lookout see nothing, Mr.
Barnstable?”
The lieutenant of the watch hailed the man aloft, and demanded if
anything were visible in the direction of the wind, and received for
answer, that the fog intercepted the view in that quarter of the
heavens, but that the sail in the east was a ship, running large, or
before the wind. The Pilot shook his head doubtingly at this
information, but still he manifested a strong reluctance to relinquish
the attempt of getting more to the southward. Again he communed with
the commander of the frigate, apart from all other ears; and while
they yet deliberated, a second report was heard, leaving no doubt that
the Alacrity was firing signal-guns for their particular attention.
“Perhaps,” said Griffith, “he wishes to point out his position, or to
ascertain ours; believing that we are lost like himself in the mist.”
“We have our compasses!” returned the doubting captain; “Somers has a
meaning in what he says!”
“See!” cried Katherine, with girlish delight, “see, my cousin! see,
Barnstable! how beautifully that vapor is wreathing itself in clouds
above the smoky line of fog! It stretches already into the very
heavens like a lofty pyramid!”