THE CRUISER
Matterson, Gleazen and the trader, Arnold, Abe and I, and the white
girl and her great black servant, all were crowded into a frail
dugout, which must long since have foundered, but for the marvelous
skill of the big Fantee canoeman and the sureness and steadiness
with which the girl had wielded her paddle. And now the girl sat
with her face buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking as she
sobbed; and the big black, awed and frightened by the nearness and
strangeness of the good Adventure, was looking up at the men who had
crowded to the rail above him. As the brig came into the wind and
lay beside the canoe, her yards sharply counter-braced, the long
seas rose to the gunwale of our heavily laden and waterlogged little
craft, and she slowly filled and settled.
We should have perished there and then, within an arm's length of
the solid planks that promised safety, had not Gideon North acted
promptly. As the canoe settled and the water rose, I suddenly found
myself swimming, and gave the bottom of the canoe a kick and plunged
forward through the water to reach the girl and hold her up. At the
same moment, indistinctly through the rush of the waves, I heard
Captain North giving orders. Then I saw Abe beside me, swimming on
the same errand, and heard someone spluttering and choking behind
me; then I came up beside the girl and, seizing one slender wrist,
drew her arm over my shoulder and swam slowly by the brig.
There was no excitement or clamor. The canoe, having emerged half
full of water from those vast breakers on the bar, yet having made
out to ride the seas well enough until the girl and the negro
stopped paddling, had then quietly submerged and left us all at once
struggling in the ocean.
Blocks creaked above us and oars splashed, and suddenly I felt the
girl lifted from my shoulders; then I myself was dragged into a
boat. Thus, after ten days on the continent of Africa, ten such days
of suffering and danger that they were to live always as terrible
nightmares in the memory of those of us who survived them, we came
home to the swift vessel that had belonged to poor Seth Upham.
To the story that we told, first one talking, then another, all of
us excited and all of us, except Arnold Lamont, who never lost his
calm precision and the girl who did not speak at all, fairly
incoherent with emotion, Gideon North replied scarcely a word.
"The black beasts!" Gleazen cried in a voice that shook with rage.
"I'd give my last chance of salvation to send a broadside among them
yonder."
"Ah, that's no great price," Matterson murmured sourly. "I'd give
more than that--many times more, my friend. Think you, Captain
North, that a man of spirit would soon forget or forgive such a
token as this?" And he pointed at the raw wound the spear had left
on his face.
Gleazen stepped close beside him. "Hm! It's sloughing," he said.
"It's hot and it throbs like the devil," Matterson replied.
Arnold also came over to Matterson and looked at the wound.
"It needs attention," he commented. "It certainly is not healing as
it should."
Matterson raised his brows angrily. "Let it be," he returned.
With a slight lift of his head, Arnold faced about and walked slowly
away.
As Matterson angrily glared from one of us to another, the group
separated and, turning, I saw our guest standing silently apart.
"Captain North," I said slowly, "this lady--"
He did not wait for me to finish.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am," he cried. "You shall have my own
stateroom. I should have spoken before, but that sail troubles me."
Thereupon others turned to study the sail, which was bearing down on
us, although still some miles away; but I continued to watch the
guest whose presence there in the Adventure seemed so strange as
almost to savor of magic, as she tried to thank Gideon North.
"Don't say a word," he cried. "Not a word! Remember this: I've a
wife and daughters of my own, and I wish they were on board to make
things comfortable for you. But all we can do, I'm afraid, is give
you a chance to make yourself comfortable. Our cabin boy's gone. He
went ashore with those damnable villains yonder and never came
back."
"A little boy?" she suddenly asked.
"Aye."
"A wicked little rascal?" A strangely roguish light flashed across
her face and she smiled as if in spite of herself.
Gideon North's chuckle grew into a wide grin. "Ma'am, that's Willie
MacDougald to a T. But what do you know of him?"
"He ran away from them, and came to us when they had gone up-river,
and said that they were going to beat him, and told a terrible
story of the wrongs he had suffered. But he could not abide our ways
any more than we his,--such a time as he led us with his swearing
and thieving and lying!--and when a boat from the American cruiser
came ashore while you were gone, he told the men such a story of
your search for slaves and of all your gear and goods, they vowed to
capture you if they lay off the coast a year and a day, and they
laughed at his wretched oaths and made much of him and took him on
board. And then--then--" It seemed the thought of all that had
happened since swept upon her in a wave almost as overwhelming as
one of those breakers through which we had fought our way; for she
suddenly turned white and tried to fight back her tears, and for the
time could speak no more.
"Come, Joe, look alive now!" Captain North roared, trying to mask
his kind heart and lively emotions with a pretense of fierceness.
"Fetch hot water from the galley to my stateroom! Have the cook
bring aft hot coffee and a square meal. I'll take you below myself,
ma'am, to show you the way, and I now order you to help yourself to
all you need for comfort. Off with you, Joe!"
All this time the cook had been gaping from the galley door at what
had been going on aft; and so eager was he to get a nearer view of
the young lady who had come mysteriously out with us from the river,
and to gather up new threads of the extraordinary story Abe Guptil
had told forward, that, although he was the laziest Yankee who ever
commanded a galley stove, he set out at a dead run aft, with a
coffee-pot in one hand and a pail of hot water, which at every
moment threatened to spill and scald him, in the other.
Captain North at once came on deck again and found the rest of us
still intent on the approaching ship, which with all her canvas
spread was bearing down upon us like a race-horse. The cook, on his
way forward, paused to survey her. The watch, now glancing anxiously
aft, now studying the stranger, was standing by for whatever orders
should be forthcoming.
"Sir," said Arnold, "she means trouble."
"We've waited too long already," Captain North replied. Raising the
trumpet he cried, "Call up all hands, there, Mr. Severance!"
A moment later he looked keenly at Matterson. "Mr. Matterson," he
said, "you are exhausted."
"I _am_ a little peaked," Matterson said thoughtfully, "a little
peaked, but not exhausted."
"Will you take your station, sir?"
"I will." Still in his wet clothes and cautiously touching his
inflamed wound, Matterson went forward to the forecastle. There was
something soldierly in his promptness. It was so evident that his
strength was scarcely equal to his task, that for his hardihood,
little as I liked him, I freely gave him credit.
"Mr. Gleazen," said Captain North, "I am afraid we must show her our
heels."
"If I could lay my hands on the lean neck of William MacDougald,"
Gleazen growled, "I'd wring his head clean off."
"She unquestionably is bearing down on us."
"She is."
"And she knows--"
"She knows," cried Gleazen, "all that Willie MacDougald can tell her
of casks and farina and shackles and lumber for extra decks."
"And of false papers with which you so carefully provided yourself?"
Gideon North's face all this time was as sober as a judge's, but
now I saw that he was deliberately tormenting Gleazen with the
various preparations the man had made for that unholy traffic in
slaves.
Although Gleazen himself by now perceived it, his wrath turned on
our erstwhile cabin boy rather than on Gideon North. He swore
vilely. "Aye," he cried, "we must run--run or hang. And all for the
word of a prying, cursing, eavesdropping young rooster that I might
have wrung the neck of, any day for months past. If ever I lay hands
on his ape's throat--"
"I gather, sir," Captain North dryly interposed, "you'll use him
harshly."
With that he turned his back on Gleazen and raised his trumpet:--
"Lay aloft and loose the main to'g'l'ants'l.--Man the to'g'lant
sheets and halyards.--Some of you men, there, stand by the clewl'nes
and braces." For a moment he stood, trumpet at lips, watching every
motion of the men; then, as those on the yards loosened the sail, he
thundered, "Let fall!--Lay in!--Sheet home!" Then, "Hoist
away!--Belay the halyards!"
As we crowded on sail, the brig leaned before the wind, and for a
time we hoped that we were gaining on the stranger; but our hopes
were soon dispelled.
It seemed queer to run from our own countrymen, but run we did all
that afternoon, through the bluest of blue seas, with white clouds
flying overhead and low lands on the horizon.
In another sense I could not help feeling that Gideon North himself
showed quite too little anxiety about the outcome of the race. Yet,
as time passed, even his face grew more serious, and all that
afternoon, as we braced the yards and so made or shortened sail as
best to maintain our speed at every change of wind, an anxious
group watched from the quarter-deck of the Adventure the swift
vessel that stood after us and slowly gained on us, with her canvas
spread till she looked on the blue sea for all the world like a
silver cloud racing in the blue sky.
The nearer she came, the graver grew the faces about me; for, if the
full penalty of the law was exacted, to be convicted as a slaver in
those days was to be hanged, and in all the world there was no place
where a vessel and her men were so sure to be suspected of slaving
as in the very waters where we were then sailing. The track of
vessels outward bound from America to Good Hope and the Far East ran
in general from somewhere about the Cape Verde Islands to the
southeastern coast of Brazil; that of vessels homeward bound, from
Good Hope northwest past St. Helena and across the Equator. Thus the
western coast of Africa formed, with those two lines that vessels
followed, a rough triangle; and looking toward the apex, where the
two converged, it served as the base. In that triangle of seas, as
blue as sapphire and as clear, occurred horrors such as all human
history elsewhere can scarcely equal. There a slaver would leave the
lanes of commerce, run up to the coast one night, and be gone the
next with a cargo of "ebony" under her hatches, to mingle with the
ships inward or outward bound; and there the cruisers hunted.
The faces of the crew were sober as the man-of-war, cracking on
every stitch of canvas, came slowly up to us at the end of the
afternoon. We all knew then that even to keep a safe lead until
sunset, it would do us precious little good; for in a clear
starlight night our pursuer could follow us almost as well as by
day. Arnold Lamont was inscrutable; Gideon North was gravely silent;
Matterson and Gleazen were angry and sullen; and the luckless
trader, who had escaped from his ambushed caravan only to find
himself in a doomed vessel, was yellow with fear. There was not a
man, forward or aft, who did not know the incalculable stakes for
which we were racing. Pedro with his monkey on and off his shoulder
as he worked, Abe Guptil with his nervous, eager step, and all the
others, each showing the strain after his own manner, leaped to the
ropes at the word of command or fidgeted about the decks in the
occasional moments of inaction.
Of our passenger I had thought often and with ever keener anxiety.
How the fast-approaching end of our race would affect her future I
could only guess, and really I was more anxious for her than for
myself. But from the moment she went below neither I nor any of the
others saw sign or glimpse of her, until, just at sunset, I ran
thither to fetch the leather-bound spyglass whose lower power and
greater illumination lent itself best to night work.
As I clattered down the companionway, I heard someone dart out of
the cabin. But when I entered, the girl, as if she had been waiting
to see who it was, came back again, so eager for news from above
that she could no longer remain in hiding.
"Tell me, sir," she said, lifting her head proudly, "has the cruiser
overhauled us yet?"
"Not yet," I replied.
She stood as if waiting for whatever else I had to say; but my
tongue for the moment was tied.
"If they do?" she said as if to question me.
"Heaven help us!"
"Come," she cried with some asperity, "don't stand there staring
like a gaby! Tell me everything. Have not I a right to know?"
"If you wish," I replied, stung by the scorn in her voice. "The
chances are that, if we are caught, some of us will hang. Which of
us and how many, is a debatable question."
She thought it over calmly. "That is probably true. I think,
however, that I shall have something to say about which ones will
hang."
That was a phase of the matter which had not occurred to me. It gave
me a good deal of relief, until I met her eyes regarding me still
scornfully, and realized what an exhibition of myself I was making.
I had been assertive enough hitherto, and I had not lacked
confidence where females were concerned; I remembered well the one
who so long before had come into my uncle's store in Topham, and how
Arnold had smiled at the scorn that I had accorded her. But this
young lady somehow was different. She had a fine, quiet dignity that
seemed always to appraise me with cool precision. She had shown,
once at least, a flash of humor that indicated how lightly, in less
tragic circumstances, she could take light things. Now and then she
had dealt a keen thrust that cut me by its truth.
And yet she treated me kindly enough, too. She had seemed almost
glad to have me at her side when we ran together from the mission.
"Mistress--" I began; then stopped and clumsily stammered, "I--I
don't know your name."
"My name?" With the hint of a smile, but with that fine dignity
which made me feel my awkwardness many times over, she said, "I am
Faith Parmenter."
Another pause followed, which embarrassed me still more; then,
awkwardly, I reached for the night glass. Things were not happening
at all as I had dreamed.
"You're long enough finding that glass," Captain North growled when
I handed it to him. "Aye, and red in the face, too."
I was thankful indeed that the approach of the ship, which had
sailed so swiftly as to overhaul even our Baltimore brig, gave him
other things to think about.
By now the race was almost over. I heard Gleazen talking of
bail--of judges--of bribes. I saw the man Pedro twitching his
fingers at his throat. I saw Arnold Lamont and Gideon North watching
the stranger intently, minute after minute. Taking in our
studding-sails and royals, we braced sharp by the wind with our head
to westward. At that our pursuer, which had come up almost abreast
of us but a mile away, followed our example, sail for sail and point
for point, whereupon we hauled up our courses, took in topgallant
sails and jib, and tacked.
When the stranger followed our manoeuvre, but with the same sail
that she had been carrying, she came near enough for us to see that
her lower-deck ports were triced up. When we tacked offshore again,
she hauled up her mizzen staysail and stood for us; and fifteen
minutes later she hauled her jib down, braced her headsails to the
mast, and rounded to about half a cable's length to the windward of
us on our weather quarter. We had already heard the roll of drums
beating the men to their stations, and now Captain North, his glass
leveled at her in the half light, cried gloomily:--
"Aye, the tampions are out of her guns already!"
"Ship ahoy!" came the deep hail. "What ship is that?"
"Train your guns, Captain North!" Gleazen cried fiercely; "train
your guns!"
"Mr. Gleazen," Gideon North retorted, with a stern smile, "with one
broadside she can blow us into splinters. Our shot would no more
than rattle on her planks."
"Ahoy there!" the deep voice roared, now angrily.
"The brig Adventure from Boston, bound on a legitimate trading
voyage to the Guinea coast," Captain North replied. "Where are you
from?"
To his question they returned no answer. The curt order that the
speaking-trumpet sent out to us was:--
"Standby! We're sending a boat aboard."
We were caught by a cruiser, and there was evidence below that would
send us, guilty and guiltless alike, to the very gallows if the
courts should impose on us the extreme penalty.
Up to this point we had not been certain of the nationality of our
pursuers. Too often flags were used to suit the purpose of the
moment. But there was now no doubt that the uniforms in the boat
were those of our own countrymen.
With long, hasty strides, Gleazen crossed the deck to the captain.
In his face defiance and despair were strangely mingled. He was
nervously working his hands. "Quick now," he cried. "Haul down the
flag, Captain North. Break out the red and yellow. Throw over the
papers. Over with them, quick!"
"I am not sure I wish to change my registry," Gideon North quietly
returned.
Gleazen swore furiously. "You'll hang with the rest of us," he
cried.
"I think, sir, that I can _prove my_ innocence."
"The casks and shackles will knot the rope round your stiff neck.
Aye, Captain North, you'll have a merry time of it, twitching your
toes against the sunrise."
In fury Gleazen spun on his heel. For once, as his teeth pulled
shreds of skin from his lips, the man was stark white.
We heard the creak of blocks as the ship lowered her boat, heard the
splash of oars as the boat came forging toward us, saw in the stern
the bright bars of a lieutenant's uniform.
There was not one of us who did not feel keenly the suspense. So
surely as the boat came aboard, just so surely would the searchers,
primed for their task, no doubt, by that vengeful little wretch,
MacDougald, find whatever damning evidence was stowed in the hold;
and I was by no means certain that, in the cold light of open court,
we who had fought against every suggestion of illegal traffic could
prove our innocence. But to Gleazen and Matterson the boat promised
more than search and seizure. Whether or not the rest of us effected
our acquittal, for those two a long term in prison was the least
that they could expect, and the alternative caused even Gleazen's
nonchalance to fail him. It is one thing, and a very creditable
thing, to face without fear the prospect of an honest death in a
fair fight; it is quite another, calmly to anticipate hanging.
Still Gleazen stood there in the fleeting twilight, opening and
closing his hands in indecision. Still Captain North waited with
folded arms, determined at any cost to have the truth and the truth
only told on board his brig.
The brig slowly rose, and fell, and rose, on the long seas. The men
stood singly and in little groups, waiting, breathless with
apprehension, for whatever was to happen. A cable's length away, the
cruising man-of-war, her ports triced up, her guns run out and
trained, rolled on the long seas in time with the brig. We had
thought, when we escaped from the enfolding attack of the African
war, that all danger was over. Now, it seemed, we must face a new
danger, which menaced not only our lives, but our honor.
The boat now lay bumping under the gangway.
"Come, pass us a line!" the lieutenant cried.
Suddenly Gleazen woke from his indecision. Stepping boldly to the
rail, he called down in his big, gruff, assertive voice:--
"You men had better not come on board. Mind you, I've given you fair
warning."
"What's that you're saying?"
"You better not come on board. We've got four cases of smallpox
already, and two more that I think are coming down."
The men in the boat instantly shoved off, and a dozen feet away sat
talking in low voices. Obviously they were undecided what to do.
To most of us Gleazen's cool, authoritative statement, that the most
dread plague of the African coast, the terror alike of traders,
cruisers, and slavers, had appeared among us--a downright lie--was
so amazing that we scarcely knew what to make of it. I must confess
that, little as I liked the means that he took, I was well pleased
at the prospect of his gaining his end. But Gideon North, as he had
been prompt to shatter at the start Gleazen's first attempt at
fraud, promptly and unexpectedly thrust his oar into this one.
"That, gentlemen, is not so," he called down to the boat. "We have
as clean a bill of health as any ship in the service."
"Come, come, now," cried the young officer. "What's all this?"
"I'm telling you the truth, and I'm master of this brig."
With his hands at his mouth Gleazen, half-pretending to whisper,
called, "We're humoring him. He won't admit he has it. But what I've
told you is God's honest truth."
Captain North started as if about to speak, then seemed to think
better of it. Folding his arms, he let the matter stand.
I think he, as much as any of the rest of us, was relieved when the
boat, after hesitating a long time, during which we suffered keenest
anxiety, made about and returned to the ship. Still we dared not
breathe easily, lest the commanding officer, refusing to accept his
subordinate's report, order a search at all costs. But five minutes
later it appeared that, whatever their suspicions may have been,
they had no intention of running needless risks, for they came about
and made off up the coast.
Small wonder that they acted thus! The bravest of captains must have
stopped three times to think before ordering his men to dare that
terrible disease, the worst scourge of those seas, the terror alike
of slavers and cruisers, on the bare word of such as Willie
MacDougald that he would find contraband.
I have often wondered whether Willie MacDougald was on board the
ship, and whether he was responsible for the chase. In the light of
all that I heard, I rather think he was, although none of us who
searched the decks of the other vessel caught so much as a glimpse
of him. But if so, it must have disappointed him deeply that his
revenge failed to reach Cornelius Gleazen and Pedro's monkey; and
seeing the monkey, which had eluded its owner and strayed aft,
perched in the rigging and malevolently eyeing Gleazen himself, I
laughed aloud.
Then I saw that it was no time for laughing, for Gleazen and Gideon
North were standing grimly face to face, and Arnold and Matterson
and the trader were gathering close around them.
Out of the rumble of angry voices, one came to me more distinctly
than any of the others:--
"Mr. Gleazen, it is time that we settled this question once and for
all. If you will come below with me, we can reach, I am sure, a
decision that will be best for all of us in the Adventure."
It was Captain North who spoke. As he moved toward the companionway,
I saw that Arnold Lamont was beckoning to me.