HIGH NOON.
"No life is in the air, but in the waters
Are creatures huge, and terrible, and strong;
The swordfish and the shark pursue their slaughters;
War universal reigns these depths along.
The lovely purple of the noon's bestowing
Has vanished from the waters, where it flung
A royal color, such as gems are throwing
Tyrian or regal garniture among."
High noon! Still the stanch old brig bowed and dipped her bluff bows
into the long, easy swell of the tropics; the round, flat counter sent
the briny bubbles sparkling away in the glare of the noontide sun; the
sails flapped and chafed against the spars and rigging, while the crew
sheltered themselves beneath the awnings, and dozed on peacefully.
Off to seaward a few dead trade-clouds showed their white bulging cheeks
along the horizon, and occasionally a fluttering blue patch of a breeze
would skim furtively over the backs of the rollers; but long before they
reached the brig they had expended their force, and expired in the
boundless calm.
Not so, however, with the large sail that had been seen from the brig in
the early morning. For, with a lofty spread of kites and a studding-sail
or two, she at times caught a flirting puff of air, and when the sun had
passed the zenith she had approached within half a mile or less of the
brig. There was no mistaking the stranger's character. Her taunt, trim
masts, square yards, and clear, delicate black tracery of rigging,
shadowed by a wide spread of snow-white canvas over the low, dark
hull--which at every roll in the gentle undulations exposed a row of
ports with a glance of white inner bulwarks--while the brass stars of
her battery reflected sparks of fire from the blazing rays of the sun,
showed she was a man-of-war.
"She's one of our cruisers, I think, sir," said the mate, as he handed
the spy-glass to the captain; "but Ben here believes contrariwise, and
says she is a French corvette."
"Have to try again, Mr. Binks; for, to my mind, she's an out-and-out
Yankee sloop-of-war. Ay! there goes his colors up to the gaff! so up
with our ensign, or else he'll be burning some powder for us."
Even while they were speaking a flag went rapidly up in a roll to the
corvette's peak, when, shaking itself clear, it lay white and red, with
a galaxy of white stars in a blue union, on the lee side of the spanker;
while at the same instant a long, thin, coach-whip of a pennant unspun
itself from the main truck, and hung motionless in the calm down the
mast. Her decks were full of men, standing in groups under the shade of
the sails to leeward; and on the poop were three or four officers in
uniform and straw hats. One of these last stood for some time gazing at
the brig--one hand resting on the ratlines of the mizzen shrouds, and
the other slowly swinging a trumpet backward and forward. Presently an
officer with a pair of gleaming epaulets on his shoulders mounted the
poop ladder, touched his hat, and waved his hand toward the brig. A
moment after--
"Brig ahoy!" came in a sharp, clear, manly tone through the trumpet.
"Sir?"
"What brig is that?"
"The 'Martha Blunt!' named after my dear old wife, God bless her! and
myself, Jacob Blunt, God bless me!" added the jolly skipper, in a sotto
voce chuckle to the fair passenger who stood beside him.
"Where are you from, and where bound?" came again through the trumpet.
"Bordeaux, and bound to Kingston. We have a free passport from Sir
Robert Calder and Admiral Villeneuve."
There was a wave of the trumpet as the speaker finished hailing, and
then touching his hat to the officer with the gold swabs, and pausing
only a moment, he moved to the other side of the corvette's poop.
"It would be no more nor polite in him to tell us what his name is,
arter all the questions he's axed."
"Don't ye know, Mr. Binks," broke in the captain, "that the dignity of a
man-of-war is sich that it wouldn't be discreet to tell no more than
that she has a cargo of cannon balls, and going on a cruise any wheres?
which ye may believe is as much valuable information as we might get out
of our own calabashes without asking a question."
"You are allers right, Captain Blunt, but I did not tax my mind to think
when I spoke them remarks," said Binks, deferentially.
The cruiser, however, seemed more communicative than the mate gave her
credit for, and a moment after the officer with the trumpet sang out,
"This is the United States ship 'Scourge,' from Port Royal, bound on a
cruise! Please report us."
And again, after a few words apparently with the officer with the
epaulets, the trumpet was raised to his lips, and he asked, "Have you
seen any vessels lately?"
The skipper was on the point of answering the hail, when his mate said,
"Beg pardon, Captain Blunt, but Ben and me made out a fore-and-aft
schooner airly this morning, with sweeps out, pulling in under the
outermost headland there," pointing with his horny finger as he spoke.
"Nothing, sir, but a small schooner at daylight sweeping to windward."
"What?" came back in a clear, quick note from the corvette.
"Small fore-and-after, sir, with sails down and sweeps out, close under
the land."
In a moment two or three officers on the cruiser's deck put their heads
together, several glasses were directed toward the now dim mirage-like
shadow of the island, and the next instant the sharp ring of a
boatswain's whistle was heard, followed by a gruff call of, "Away there!
Ariels, away!"
Immediately a cluster of sailors, in white frocks and trowsers and straw
hats, sprang over the ship's quarter to the davits; and then with a
chirruping, surging pipe, a boat fell rapidly to the water. The falls
were cast off, the cutter hauled up to the gangway, and soon an officer
stepped over the side and tripped down to the boat. The white blades of
the oars stood up on end in a double line, the boat pushed off, the oars
fell with a single splash, and she steered for the brig. Descending down
into the gentle valley of the long swell, she would disappear for an
instant, till nothing but the white hats and feather blades of the oars
were visible; and again rising on the crest, the water flashed off in
foam from her bows as she came dancing on.
In a few minutes the coxswain cried, "Way enough," and throwing up his
hand with the word "Toss," the cutter shot swiftly alongside; the
boat-hooks of the bowmen brought her up with a sudden jar, and the next
moment an officer with an epaulet on his right shoulder and a sword by
his side stepped over the gangway. The skipper was there to receive him,
to whom he touched his cap with his fore finger; but as his eye glanced
aft he saw a lady, and he gracefully removed his cap and bowed like a
gentleman to her. He was a man of about eight-and-twenty, with a fine,
manly, sailor-like figure and air, and with a pair of bright, determined
gray eyes in his head that a rascal would not care to look into twice.
"I am the first lieutenant of the 'Scourge,' sir," he said, turning to
the skipper, "and if you will step this way, I'll have a few words with
you."
This was said in a careless tone of command, but withal with frankness
and civility. The captain led him aft toward the taffrail, but in
crossing the deck the little tot of a boy followed closely in his wake,
and getting hold of the officer's sword, which trailed along by its
belt-straps on the deck, he got astride of it, and seized on to the
coat-skirts of the wearer. The little tug he gave caused the officer to
turn round, and with a cheerful smile and manner he snatched the urchin
up in his arms, kissed him on both cheeks, and as he put him down again
and detached his sword for him to play with, he exclaimed,
"What a glorious little reefer you'll make one of these days! Won't
you?"
"_Oui! oui! mon papa!_" said the little scamp, as he looked knowingly up
in the officer's face.
"Excuse my little boy, sir," said his mother, who was in chase of him;
and then turning to the child with a blush spreading over her lovely
face, "It is not your papa, Henri! papa is in Kingston."
"Ah! madame, I love children. I had once a dear little fellow like this,
but both he and his sweet mother are in heaven now. God bless them!"
A flush of sadness tinged his cheeks, and he passed his hand rapidly
across his eyes, as if the dream was too sad to dwell upon; but changing
his tone, and while with one hand he patted the little fellow's head, he
went on: "Madame lives in Jamaica?"
"Oh yes; I was born there, but my parents were destroyed by an
earthquake when I was quite a little child, and this good captain here
carried my sister and myself to France soon after, where Monsieur--"
here she hesitated and blushed with pleasure--"where I married my
husband, who is a planter on the island. Perhaps you may know Monsieur
Jules Piron?"
"Piron!" said the navy man, with warmth. "Ay, madame, for as fine a
fellow as ever planted sugar! Know him? Why, madame, it is only a week
ago that a lot of us dined with him at his estate of Escondido; you know
it, madame? in the grand piazza which looks down the gorge. But he
behaved very shabbily," said the officer, as his face lighted up gayly,
"for he kept a spy-glass to his eye oftener than the wine-glass to his
lips, in looking out seaward, and in talking of his wife and the little
boy he had never seen."
"Oh, monsieur! you make me so happy," said the lovely woman, as with
sparkling eyes and heaving bosom she cried, "Banou! Banou! this
gentleman has just seen your good master."
The black, who had been standing near and guarding every movement of his
little charge, who was trailing the sword about the deck, immediately
approached the officer, and, falling on his knees, seized his hand and
drew it toward his face.
"Ah! madame, I see that kindness meets with a return as well from a dark
as a fair skin," said the officer, in a low tone, as he gently withdrew
his hand from Banou's grasp.
"But," he continued, turning toward the skipper, as the clear sound of
the cruiser's bell struck his ear, "I must not forget what I came for."
"You say, captain, that you saw a schooner at daylight, eh? This way, if
you please"--as he raised his cap to Madame Piron and walked over to the
other side of the deck. "What was she like?"
"She was reported to me by the mate," replied Jacob Blunt.
"Please send for him."
"Oh! Mr.--a'--"
"Binks, sir," said that individual, touching his hat and making an
awkward scrape at a bow.
"Well, Mr. Binks, did you clearly make out the vessel you saw this
morning under the land?"
"Can't say exactly, sir, as I did; but Ben Brown there was on the
fore-yard, and he got a good squint at her."
"Ah! can I see the man?"
The mate straightway went forward, and, after a few pokes about the lee
waist, Ben was roused out from under the jolly-boat and came rolling
aft.
"_You_ saw the schooner, eh?" said the lieutenant, as if he was in the
habit of asking sharp questions and getting quick answers.
"Yes, sir," said the squat seaman, as he hitched up his knife-belt, and
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and took off his cap.
"Where?"
"Here away, sir," with a wave of his paw, "just clear of that bluff
foreland where the gap opens with the Blue Mountain."
"How was she rigged?"
"Bare sticks, sir, not much of a bowsprit, and no sail spread. I see her
first by the flash of her sweeps in the rising sun, as she was heading
about sou'-sou'-east into the land."
"Two masts, you say?"
"Ay, sir; but I thought as 'ow there was a jigger-like yard a-sticking
out over her starn, though I wasn't sartin."
"So!" said the lieutenant, in a musing tone, and with rather a grave
face and compressed lip; "that will do; thank you, my man." Then placing
his hand on the skipper's shoulder, he drew him to one side, out of
ear-shot, and said,
"Captain Blunt, are you much acquainted in these latitudes?"
"Oh yes, sir, me and my old brig are regular traders here, from Bordeaux
to Jamaica, and so home to England."
"No treasure, I presume?" went on the officer, with a smile.
"Why, lieutenant, none to speak of, p'raps; just a handful of dollars
and a guinea or two in the bag for a few sacks of sugar or coffee, or a
pipe of rum, or sich like, on my own account."
"Well, my friend, there is probably nothing to fear, but if the breeze
springs up, keep as close to the corvette as you can, and I shall ask
the captain to keep a look-out for you during the night."
"By the way"--the officer continued in a low tone as he moved toward the
gangway--"in case any thing should happen, you had better hoist a
lantern at your peak or in the main-rigging--we have sharp eyes for ugly
customers, and one or two of them have been particularly troublesome of
late hereabouts."
Turning for a moment to bid adieu to the fair lady passenger on the
quarter-deck, and recovering his sword after a playful struggle with the
youngster, he buckled it around his waist, and, stepping lightly over
the side and into the boat, the oars fell with a single splash, and the
cutter shot rapidly away toward the corvette.