to the enemy.
While this manoeuvre was going on, the bows of the Sea-Sprite had fallen
off in the wind, so as to bring us side by side, within half pistol
shot. She returned the fire with a vengeance, and several of our brave
tars fell wounded or slain to the deck.
"Ready! blaze away!"--but the sound of our captain's voice was lost in
the thunder of the heavy ordnance.
The battle now commenced in real earnest. The cannon bellowed, small
arms rattled, the combatants yelled, the dying groaned, the iron
thunder-bolt crashed, riving the vessel's oaken timbers, and a dense
sulphur-cloud overspread the scene of furious commotion, so that we
fought with an invisible enemy. We could see nothing save the streaming
lightning of the cannon, or the fiend-like figures that worked our
aftermost guns, begrimmed with powder and blood, stripped nearly naked,
and sweltering in their eager toil. As the smoke occasionally lifted,
however, the battered bulwarks of the enemy, and the glimmering streaks
along her black waist, showed that our fire had been rightly directed;
and the irregularity with which it was returned, told the confusion that
prevailed on her decks. Several times we attempted to run her aboard,
but they discovered our intentions in time to avoid us.
At length a discharge from the well-directed gun of old Benjamin, took
effect in her fore-top. The topmast came thundering down with all its
rigging, over the foresail. Having thus lost the benefit of her head
sail, she rounded to, and her jib-boom came in contact with our fore
rigging.
"Now is our time!--into her, boarders!" roared Dacres, leaping upon the
pirate's forecastle deck.
But the order was useless--they were already hard on his track. A close
and desperate struggle now took place. Pistols cracked, sabres gleamed,
and deadly blows were dealt on either side, till a rampart of the slain
and wounded was raised high between the furious combatants. Gloomy and
dark as an arch-fiend, the pirate leader raged among his men, urging
them on with threats and curses, in a voice of thunder, and sweeping
down all opposition before his dripping blade. But Dacres, backed by his
well-trained boarders, received them on the points of their pikes, with
a coolness and bravery that made them recoil upon each other, like
surges from a rock-ribbed coast. Thus the fight continued with various
success, till the attention of the bucaneers was arrested by an
unearthly shout in the rear, and the tall figure of Percy was seen,
laying about him with whirlwind impetuosity, his long, untrimmed hair
flying wildly in the commotion of the atmosphere, his features working
with the madness that controlled him, and his dilated eyes flashing with
a fierce, unnatural fire upon his opponents. All quailed before him.
Wherever his merciless arm fell there was an instant vacancy. Although a
score of cutlasses were glancing, meteor-like, around his person, as if
by a spell, he remained uninjured. At length his eye detected the pirate
leader. Dashing aside all before him, with one bound he was at his side.
The fierce chief started in amazement at the sight of him whom he
supposed many a league from the spot, if not dead, but quickly recovered
his stern and gloomy bearing.
"Monster! where is she?" shouted Percy.
"Ask the sharks!" replied the captain, lunging at him with his sabre.
These were his last words. Percy, quick as thought, drew a pistol from
his belt and fired into his face! He fell heavily to the deck, and the
combatants closed around him, as tempest-waves close over a foundering
ship!
The pirates, now that their leader was slain, fought with less spirit,
and the victory was soon decided in our favor. Sooth to say, it was
dearly earned; and many who sought the battle with a quickened pulse,
and eager for the strife, were that evening consigned to the waves. Of
all the pirate's crew, consisting of nearly a hundred men, but thirteen
remained unharmed. Heavens!--what a ghastly spectacle her decks
presented! Fifty stalwart forms lay there, stiffened in death, or
writhing in the agony of their deep wounds, severed and mangled in every
way imaginable; and so slippery was the main deck that we could hardly
cross it, while the sea all around was died with the red waters of life,
that gushed in a continuous stream from her scuppers.
On the forecastle deck, where the last desperate struggle had taken
place, I recognized many of our own crew among the lifeless heaps. Poor
old Ramrod, the gunner, lay there, with the black blood trickling over
his swarthy brow, from a bullet hole in his temple. He had died while
the might of battle was yet upon him--and the fierce scowl which he
darted at his foes, still remained on his rigid features. His hand, even
in the agonies of death, had not relinquished its firm grasp on his
cutlass, and the gigantic form of a swart pirate, with his skull cloven
down, close at hand, showed that it had been swayed to some purpose.
Poor Benjamin! I could have wept over him. He had been in the service
from his earliest days, and the scars of many a sanguinary fight were
visible upon his muscular arms, and on his bronzed and powerful chest.
My brave boy, Ponto, was there also, hanging pale and wounded over the
britch of the bow gun. He had followed me when we boarded, like a young
tiger robbed of his mate. Although faint and helpless with the loss of
blood, which belched at every heave of his bosom, from a deep sabre
wound in his shoulder, and which had completely saturated his checked
shirt and his duck pantaloons, yet his firmness was unshaken. I ordered
one of our men to take charge of him, until he could be looked to by the
surgeon. "Not yet," faintly exclaimed the generous child, pointing to
Mengs, the boatswain, who lay wounded over a coil of the cable, with
three or four grim looking bucaneers stretched dead across his chest,
the blood from their wounds streaming into his face and neck,--"look to
him first, he may be suffocated."
"No, no, youngster," murmured the hardy Briton, "I'd do very well till
my turn comes, if I had this ugly looking craft cast off from my
gun-deck, and a can of water stowed away in my cable tier!"
After the prisoners were secured, I sought the cabin, where I had
ordered Ponto to be carried. It was a richly garnished room, with berth
hangings of crimson damask and amber colored silk, a gorgeous carpet
from the looms of Brussels, and furniture in keeping. Opposite the
companion-way hung a superb picture of the virgin mother and her infant,
and over it a golden crucifix, while beneath, on a rose wood table, lay
a guitar, implements for sketching, and various articles for female
employ and amusement. Indeed, one might have supposed himself entering
the boudoir of a delicate Spanish belle, rather than the domicil of a
lawless rover. This I remember but from the glance of a moment. My
attention was drawn to the occupants of the place. There lay my wounded
boy, by the side of a silken sofa-couch, his face buried in the garments
of a female stretched lifeless upon it, and over them bent the tall form
of Percy, gazing upon the group with a fixed, vacant stare, which told
that suffering could wring his soul no longer--desolation and madness
had come upon him. His attitude, the expression of his features, and the
low, convulsive sobs and broken murmurs of the boy, at once explained
the scene. The one had found a wife, the other a sister, in that
inanimate form. I advanced nearer, in hopes that life might not be
altogether extinct. The sight was appalling, but beautiful. The pale,
dead face, upon which the mellow radiance of sunset streamed through the
sky-light, was lovely as a seraph's. Her eyes were closed as if in
sleep; the long braids of her bright hair lay undisturbed upon her
marble forehead, and there was no appearance of violence, save where the
dress of sea-green silk had been torn back from her bosom, as if in her
dying agonies, displaying a dark puncture, as of a grape-shot, just
below the snowy swell of the throat, from which the crimson blood oozed,
slowly trickling down over her white and rounded shoulder. She had
probably been killed by our first raking broad-side.
"Fire! fire!" shouted a dozen voices on deck. I sprang up the
companion-way. The fore-hatch had been removed, and a dense volume of
smoke was rolling up from below. A glance was sufficient to show that no
effort of ours could save the vessel, and preparations were speedily
made to rescue the wounded, and abandon her to her fate. It being
impossible for me to leave my duty on deck, I sent a trusty Hibernian to
rescue my helpless boy and to inform Percy of our situation. He returned
with a rueful countenance.
"Ochone! Mr. Hackinsack," said the tender hearted fellow, "it almost
made the salt wather come intil my een, to see the poor man and the
beautiful kilt leddy,--an' whin I tould 'em as how the schooner was
burnin' and would be blown to Jerico in a twinklin' all he said was to
give me a terrible, ferocious-like scowl and point with a loaded pistol
to the companion; so I took his mainin' an' left 'em."
Two other messengers, sent to take him away by force, met with no better
success.
The flames were ready to burst out on every side, and from each chink
and crevice around the hatches--which had been replaced and barred
down--the smoke was darting up with the force of vapour from a steam
engine. The deck had become so heated that it was painful to stand upon
it--the fire was fast progressing towards the run, where the magazine
was situated. Thrice had the order been given to quit the burning
vessel, but I could not forsake my friend without one more effort to
rescue him from the terrible fate that awaited him, if left behind. He
still held the loaded pistol in his hand and sternly forbade my
approach. Poor Ponto had fainted from grief and loss of blood, and lay
across his sister's body. I sprang forward and raised him in my arms,
regardless of the maniac's threats. The pistol banged in my ear, but
fortunately the ball passed over me as I stooped, and I regained the
companion-way without injury. By this time, he had drawn another from
his belt.
"Put away the pistol, and come with me," I urged,--"the vessel is on
fire and will soon be blown to atoms."
He looked at me with a grim stare for a moment, then burst into an
idiotic laugh. That wild laugh is still ringing in my brain. "Ha! ha!
ha!--Fire? fire? here it is, wreathing and coiling!--here! here!"
dashing his hand against his forehead.
Perceiving that it was vain to reason with his madness, and fearing for
the life of the wounded boy in my arms, I reluctantly left the hapless
man to his fate.
The boat had already put off for the last time, but I succeeded in
prevailing upon them to return, and leaping in, soon reached the Dart in
safety.
The night set in wild and black as Death. Disparted and ragged masses of
cloud were rushing over the face of the heavens, where once and again,
the soaring moon, and that same bright, solitary star, would show their
calm faces through the reeling rack, apparently flying from this scene
of turmoil and death. The increasing wind howled mournfully through the
rigging, and our battered hull staggered along the inky main writhing
and shuddering on the heave of the surge like a weary, wounded thing.
We followed in the track of the burning vessel as she fled along before
the gale, awaiting in breathless suspense the consummation of her wild
career. The black smoke, interfulgent with tortuous tongues of lurid
fire, rolled in immense volumes over her!--the red flames darted up her
masts, along the spars and rigging, and gushed in swirling sheets from
her ports and bulwarks, while in their fierce gleams, the billows that
ramped and raved about her, glowed like a huge seething cauldron of
molten iron, and the gloomy clouds that lowered above were tinged in
their ragged borders, as with blood. Occasionally the jarring thunder of
her cannon, as they became heated to explosion, announced to us the
progress of the insidious destroyer.
But a still more thrilling spectacle awaited us. In the height of the
conflagration, the hapless Percy, bearing his dead wife in his arms,
emerged as it were from the very midst of the flames, and took a stand
on the companion-way. So strongly was the tall, dark-figure relieved
against the glowing element, that his slightest gesture could not escape
our scrutiny. While with one arm he spanned the waist of the supple
corse, which apparently struggled to escape from his grasp, he waved the
other on high as if exulting in the whirl and commotion around him. He
seemed like the minister of some dark rite of heathenism, preparing to
offer up a victim to the Moloch of his superstition.
At length arrived the dreadful moment! The black hull seemed to be
lifted bodily out of the water. A volume of smoke burst over her like
the first eruption of a volcano! A spire of flame shot up to the
heavens, filling the firmament with burning fragments, while the clouds
that overhung the sea, were torn and scattered by the tremendous
concussion. A crash followed--a deep, bellowing boom, as if the solid
globe had split asunder!--then all was darkness--dreary, void, silent as
death!
TO M***, ON HER BIRTH-DAY.
By William Cutter.
What though the skies of winter
Look cold and cheerless now!
What though earth wears no mantle
But that of ice and snow!
Though trees, all bare and leafless,
Stretch up their naked arms,
In sad and mournful silence,
To brave the wintry storms!
There is enough of sunshine,
Fond memory will say,
Around this morning clustered--
_This is thy natal day!_
What though the birds of summer,
Flown far and long away,
In gentler climes are warbling,
Their loved and grateful lay!
What though, in field and garden,
No fragrant incense pours
From nature's thousand altars--
Her blossoms and her flowers!
There's music sweet as angels',
And fragrance sweet as May,
In the thoughts that breathe and blossom
Around _thy natal day_!
To me, the skies above us
Are bright as summer's noon!
And trees, in crystal blossoms,
More brilliant than in June!
There's music in the wintry blast--
There's fragrance in the snow--
And a garb of glorious beauty
On every thing below!
For oh! affection, wakened
With morning's earliest ray,
Has never ceased to whisper--
_This is thy natal day!_
RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION IN RULERS.
By John W. Chickering.
It is a great truth, and worthy of a place among the few grand
principles which lie at the foundation of all wise and just government,
that 'the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.' This may be
understood _de jure_, or _de facto_; and in either sense must be
believed, not only by those who admit, on the authority of the prophet,
that it was spoken by a divine voice, but by all who do not deny the
whole theory of an overruling Providence.
That the almighty Ruler retains both a right and an agency in the
management of terrestrial governments, is undisputed by all who
recognize his right and his agency in any thing. It is the atheist alone
who would insulate the kingdoms of the earth from the kingdom of heaven.
None would banish Jehovah from the smaller empires his providence has
organized and sustained, but those who banish him from the universe his
power has created.
Thus atheism in philosophy is sole progenitor of atheism in politics;
and it should not excite our surprise, that he who 'sees' _not_ 'God in
clouds nor hears him in the wind,'--who beholds in the great things of
the earth, the air and the sea, no footsteps of divine power, and no
finger-prints of divine wisdom, should be equally blind concerning the
progress of civil affairs, and should so have perverted his mind, and so
tortured the moral sense which God gave him, as to believe, and to
rejoice, that without God, kingdoms rise and fall, and that it is _not_
'by him' that 'kings reign, and princes decree justice.'
But with the atheist, that moral monster,'---- horrendum, informe,
ingens, cui lumen ademptum,' we are not now concerned. We leave him to
the darkness he has brought upon himself through his 'philosophy and
vain deceit,' and to the enjoyment, if enjoyment it be, of his dreary
cavern, more dreary than that of Polyphemus,--a godless world.
We come to inquire, by way of preparation for the more direct
prosecution of the object of this article, concerning the views
entertained by the great mass of mankind who believe in the existence
and providence of Jehovah, as to his particular connection with the
subordinate governments on earth, and the station which it is his holy
pleasure to occupy in their control and management. And here we find at
once, wide and hurtful mistakes; occupying relatively, such is man's
tendency to extremes, the position of antipodes. Some, overlooking the
twofold agency, partly civil, partly ecclesiastical, by which the Most
High promotes his own ends and the well being of his creatures, have
resolved each into the other, making religion an affair of the state,
and civil government a matter for ecclesiastical influence; producing in
practice the unseemly compound, commonly called "church and state," but
which might be more accurately characterized as the ruin of both.
As the fruits of this mistake, the world has seen profane monarchs
invested with titles of religion and piety. In some countries, aided by
ambition and intrigue, it has brought kings to kiss the feet of the
professed ambassadors of Jesus Christ; and gained for them honors and
power, which their divine but humble master declined for himself. This
mistake has been confirmed, if it was not originated, by the
organization of the great Jewish theocracy. This was, indeed, church and
state. But it was under a divine administration.--And although the fact
that the Deity not only attested and ratified the alliance, but
condescended to be legislator, judge, and executive, might at once have
prevented the inference; yet men _have_ inferred that the civil and
ecclesiastical powers ought always to be thus commingled. The
consequences might have been anticipated. The history both of
Christianity and of the world, is darkened by their melancholy shade.
Religion, unguarded by the miraculous intervention of Him who, under a
former dispensation, smote the offerers of strange fire, has been
corrupted by those who would do her honor, and crushed by the embraces
of false friends;--and her splendid sojourn in the halls of power, has
been met by reverses not less striking, and far more disastrous, than
Moses met after being the _protege_ of royalty; while the civil rights
of men, invaded by ambition and avarice, under the name of religion, and
with the sanction of God's name, have been yielded up without a
struggle, under the impression, that resistance would be "fighting
against God." What would not have been demanded in the name of man, has
been freely given in the name of God;--men who in defence of their
rights, would have ventured cheerfully upon treason, have shrunk with
horror from sacrilege.
Thus religion and liberty have well-nigh perished together, and their
present resting-place on earth resembles rather the one found by Noah's
dove on her second flight, than the broad home, illimitable but by the
world's circumference, which as philanthropists we hope, and as
Christians we pray, they may soon enjoy.
Others again, warned, perhaps, by the disasters consequent upon the
policy last described, have gone to the extreme, not less hurtful, and
far more presumptuous, of excluding religious motives and religious
principles from all influence in the affairs of the commonwealth. They
have thus become _quoad hoc_, practical atheists. Content indeed, that
the Deity should keep our planet in motion, and regulate its seasons and
its tides; and surround and cover it with the blessings of Providence,
nor careful to forbid him a participation even in the _internal_
concerns of Jupiter, or Herschell,--perhaps even willing to admit in
theory, the truth of the statement from the inspired record with which
this article commenced,--they yet deem it best for man, considered
either as a governing or as a governed being, that the notion of a
presiding Deity should be as much as possible excluded from his mind.
The mere juxtaposition of the words "religion" and "politics," or any of
their correlates, is sufficient to excite the fears of these scrupulous
alarmists; and if they do not imitate the example of the French, who
were seen near the close of the last century, rushing madly with the
pendulum-like oscillation of human nature, from the bonds of religious
despotism, into the very wilderness of atheism, and denounce Jehovah as
a usurper, and his adherents as rebels against "the powers that be,"
they strive to separate all questions and acts of government from God
and his laws, as if there _were_ no God; thus making, if not an
atheistic people, an atheistic government. Far otherwise, we cannot but
pause here to remark, acted the noble men, the sifted wheat of three
kingdoms, who were thrown by God's providence through ecclesiastical
tyranny, upon these shores. If they for a time, with a strange tenacity
of old habits, which showed that principle, not passion, led them, clung
to the very usages respecting toleration, which had exiled them, they at
least preserved the nation which they founded, from the character and
the curse of a nation which despises God. Heaven grant, that the
pendulum may not even now be swinging to the other extreme!
While we would have the affairs of the nation managed as if there were
no _church_ in the world, we would not have them managed as if there
were no GOD in the world. Could our voices reach the millions of our
countrymen, as Joshua's voice reached the thousands of Israel, we would
say as he said, 'IF THE LORD BE GOD, SERVE HIM.' In a word, while we
believe that the civil and ecclesiastical departments ought to be
distinct, and that their union is a departure from the intention of Him
who formed both, and that it is fraught with the most disastrous
consequences to both, we do _not_ believe that the almighty Ruler has
excluded himself from the control of either, or given the least
permission that either should be managed on any other principles than
the eternal principles of right, which are embodied in his character,
and laid down in his word.
When we speak of a sense of religious obligation, we mean more than a
general undefined belief that such an obligation exists. Such a belief
is withheld, we trust, by comparatively few who hold important places in
our national and State governments. But can it be doubted by any man who
has accustomed himself to contemplate the distinction between mere
intellectual assent, and the warm, practical conviction which reaches
the heart, and controls the conduct, that this belief may coexist with
as total an insensibility to the claims of Jehovah, as if it were
William IV., or Nicholas of Russia, who performed them, instead of the
Most High God?