IN THE CHANNEL
The firm of Hortalez and Company received word from their Spanish
agents and the representatives of Lazzonere and Company that four
English vessels--two brigs, a large lugger, and a ship (the last a most
valuable prize)--had arrived at Corunna, all sent in within a week
after the sailing of the Revenge. So well had everything been arranged
that there was a ready sale. Vessels and cargoes were disposed of
without a hitch to Spanish and French merchants, in many cases auctions
being held on the public wharves. Two weeks more and eight other prizes
were added to the list.
England was now in a storm of indignant protest. The Admiralty was
besieged with letters, and ship-owners and insurance people, frightened
at the prospect of further losses, showed signs of panic. Vessels
already loaded and ready for sailing were held in port until they
could sail, under convoy of an armed guard-ship. Insurance rates rose
twenty-five per cent. And all this time a little, fast-sailing craft
drove up and down the Channel, occasionally flaunting the rattlesnake
flag almost in sight of the fleets that lay at anchor in the roadways.
And so we find her on one bright day in August, still in sight of the
white cliffs, but heading southwest in chase of a deep-laden vessel
whose suspicions had been aroused, for she was staggering along under a
press of snow-white canvas.
Conyngham had gone forward to the forecastle and was watching the
chase through his spy-glass. The crew, much reduced in numbers by
reason of manning the prizes, watched him carefully. There had been
something about the set of the stranger’s canvas that had suggested
the man-o’-war, and now--although, as we have said, she had all sail
set--she seemed to display a slowness that was puzzling, for hand over
hand the Revenge picked up on her. The six-pounders and the swivels had
been cast loose and provided, and the men were only waiting the orders
to take their stations. There was a ponderous sea running, and the
armament of the Revenge was practically useless except at short range.
Time and again had the captain longed for a bow gun, and he would
have exchanged half of his broadside for a long twelve-pounder. They
were within two miles of the vessel now, and for the last few minutes
Conyngham had not taken his eye from the glass, crouching, or at least
half kneeling, against the bow-sprit in order to steady himself. The
lower sails were wet with the spray that dashed up from the bows,
and he himself was soaked almost to the skin. Suddenly he arose and
shouted some orders hurriedly. The Revenge came up into the wind as if
abandoning the chase. The second mate, who stood beside the helmsman,
saw the captain come running aft.
“She’s a man-o’-war brig!” cried Conyngham. “I thought as much. She has
a drag out to hold her back.”
“There she comes about,” answered the second mate. “Now we can see her
teeth. You’re right, sir. She hoped to bring us up to her. Hadn’t we
better run for it?”
For an instant the captain did not reply. He seemed to measure
carefully the rate of the other vessel’s speed against that of his own.
The result apparently satisfied him, for he turned again with a smile.
“I’ve got half a mind to try a few passes with him,” he said, “and I
would do it if it were not for the old adage about discretion. For an
Irishman, sure I have a reputation for discreetness that must not be
broken. And so,” he continued, “we’ll let well enough alone.”
It was evident to every one on board the Revenge that their vessel
sailed faster and closer on the wind than did the brig. And though
both were heading toward the white cliffs, it became apparent that if
the wind held, the Revenge would not only cross the brig’s bows at a
distance that was practically out of range of her broadside guns, but
would also weather the point that was the southernmost cape on the
English coast--Land’s End. By nightfall, if all went well, she should
be past the entrance to the Irish Channel and in her new cruising
grounds. But an unlooked-for occurrence put an end to all such hopes.
Suddenly appearing around the point of land, carrying the wind from an
entirely new direction, came a large three-masted vessel. At once the
brig, that, although to leeward, was the nearer, began to set a little
row of signal flags, and, as if noticing the shift of the wind, she
came about, apparently abandoning the attempt to head off the Revenge.
Instantly Conyngham divined her purpose, and came about also as quickly
as he could. The breeze, which had been from the eastward, was rapidly
dying down.
The big stranger, carrying the new wind, grew larger and larger.
Through the glass Conyngham could make out three rows of ports, and the
billowing canvas rising above the dark hull looked like a cloud hanging
low in the sky. It was almost dead calm, and the Revenge swung lazily
up and down, with her steering sails dipping uselessly in the water,
while the brig, that had now caught the wind, bore down nearer and
nearer. The men looked back at the quarter-deck with frightened, white
faces. All the good fortune that had so far followed them in the cruise
had apparently deserted them. They saw visions of their prize-money
disappearing, and many of the knowing ones could imagine the crowded
harbor of Portsmouth, with the big seventy-four lying at anchor, while
black, faintly struggling objects depended from her yard-arms. The
first mate and Conyngham had not exchanged a word, when suddenly the
former, lifting his hand, broke the silence.
“She’s coming, captain; by tar, she’s coming!” he cried.
The big foresail of the Revenge lifted and the sheets and outhauls of
the steering-sails spattered a line of spray as they tautened up out of
the water. But it seemed almost too late that the breeze had reached
them. Broad off the starboard bow was the brig, but a mile and a half
away, while little more than twice that distance, dead astern, came the
seventy-four, a roll of seething white playing under her forefoot and
sweeping out on either side. Down on the wind came the ominous rolling
of a drum.
“They’re beating to quarters, sir,” observed the mate; and then in
almost semitragic despair he muttered, “and they’ve got us in their
locker!”
But the Revenge was now slipping along swiftly, although she had not
yet felt the full force of the following wind. The brig had set a
little answering pennant to a new string of signals that had risen
to the masthead of the seventy-four, and in obedience, although at
extreme range, she began firing with her bow guns, the balls plashing
harmlessly in the water a few hundred yards away, but each one
appearing to come nearer than the last, and threatened to reach the
Revenge at any moment. It looked black indeed for the little cruiser.
Her actions had placed her, beyond doubt, in the minds of her pursuers
as the vessel for whose capture a large reward had been offered.
Subterfuge was useless. She had proclaimed herself as much as if she
had flown the cross-barred flag with the wriggling rattlesnake that,
bent to the color halyards, lay on deck ready to have risen and to have
been tossed to the wind.
The feeling of terror that was spreading through the crew seemed to
unnerve them. A French sailor, as a shot from the brig came closer than
before, fell on his knees and began to call upon the saints. Something
must be done, although it seemed that all human exertion would be
futile, for even now the line-of-battle ship had opened up with her two
forward guns, but, like her smaller consort, the shots fell harmlessly
some distance off. Now the Revenge had caught the full force of the
wind, and every sheet was taut as a bar of iron. The spray began to fly
over her bows as she dipped and rose against the crest of the seas. For
an instant it appeared as if she was holding her own, and it was so, as
far as the brig was concerned; but the seventy-four was faster than her
bulk would lead one to suspect. A shot came skipping along the water,
jumping from wave to wave until it sank almost broad off the beam of
the Revenge.
“We must try the last resort, Mr. Minott,” said Conyngham quietly; “we
must lighten her.”
And with that he began to shout orders to the crew, all of whom were
gathered in the waist talking in subdued voices, with much shaking
of heads and low curses. As if relieved at having something to do
and at hearing their captain’s voice ring with a note of assurance,
they sprang forward. The swivels were cast over the side, and one
after another the broadside guns followed. The effect was immediately
perceptible; the Revenge seemed to lift to the sea instead of dipping
into it. And now the water casks, some of which were on deck just abaft
the foremast, were broken in with swift blows of the axes, and the
scuppers were running full with a mixture of salt water and fresh. The
shot from the lockers followed, and both anchors, cut away, were let go
and plashed overboard. And now, inch by inch, the Revenge drew ahead.
The brig had fallen back until she was almost astern, and had ceased
firing, but the seventy-four maintained her distance and continued, by
an increased elevation of her bow-chasers, in an endeavor to reach her
quarry.
It was approaching dusk; a fine red sunset, with bars of narrow blue
clouds against the glare, glowed in the west; a still narrower and
darker cloud was draped down from the sky above, and it looked for all
the world like a picture on a grand scale of the Revenge’s cross-barred
flag, the wriggling snake and all. Prompted by an impulse, Conyngham
stepped to the color halyards, and with his own hands hoisted the
Revenge’s colors to the masthead.
As if angered by the seeming insult, the big vessel swung off a point
or two until, port after port, her broadside could be seen being
brought to bear. It was the very thing for which Conyngham had been
waiting. By doing so she lessened her speed and lost perceptible
headway.
Every nerve was tense in the captain’s body as he stood there close
to the taffrail waiting for the coming discharge, and trusting that
the British commander had underestimated the distance or the rate of
the Revenge’s sailing. The brig also was repeating the maneuver and
endeavoring to bring her broadside also into play, for she and the
seventy-four were now sailing almost side by side.
All at once it came! A cloud of white smoke broke from the tall sides
of the larger vessel, and immediately the thunderous roar of her
main-deck battery followed. How the Revenge escaped was more than any
one on board of her could tell, for some of the heavy shot passed over
her and crashed into the crests of the waves some distance in her
path. But one shot reached her, and that, striking the top of her port
bulwarks, sent a shower of white splinters whirring across the deck and
then glanced harmlessly into the sea.
The brig, that had yawed wide, immediately followed suit, and just here
the strangest thing occurred. Whether one of the guns that she had
been firing earlier in the day had not been re-aimed or whether some
accident in the firing took place has never been ascertained; perhaps
some impressed seaman gunner who had been taken by the press-gang in
a British port now found the moment to wreak his vengeance. At all
events, a shot from one of the brig’s broadside guns went so wide
of the mark that it caught the foretopmast of the big one full and
square just above the hounds and brought it, with a tangle of sails and
rigging, lurching and swinging down to deck, where the wreckage poised
for a minute and then, swayed by the wind, tangled in the head-sails
and brought the vessel almost to a stop.
The chase was over! The Revenge slipped on her way, and as Conyngham
looked back he could see his two pursuers shortening sail.
“Somebody’ll swing for that, Mr. Minott,” observed the captain.
“And somebody would have swung if it hadn’t happened, sir,” returned
the mate, giving up the wheel, which he had been handling himself, to
the now grinning helmsman.
“What course, sir?” asked the latter.
“Hold as you are,” Conyngham answered. “We’ll make some port in Spain.”
Two days later the Revenge entered the harbor of Corunna.