Having received my dismissal from the admiral, I returned to the
_Francesca_, and, summoning the purser, gave him instructions to
overhaul his stores and prepare a requisition for everything necessary
to complete for a two months' cruise. Then, sending for the boatswain,
gunner, and carpenter, I in like manner instructed them to overhaul the
hull, spars, standing and running rigging, and the contents of the
magazine, and to report to me all defects or shortage of stores in their
respective departments, and, generally, to prepare the little craft in
every way for the task that lay before her. Then, there still remaining
a couple of hours of daylight, I jumped into the gig again and pulled
aboard four vessels that had arrived during the day, for the purpose of
enquiring whether any of them had sighted or fallen in with the disabled
brig. As was to be expected, I met with no success, but I was not in
the least disappointed, for I had anticipated no other result; indeed I
calculated that the ordinary slow-sailing merchantman who might
perchance fall in with the pirate could scarcely be expected to reach
Kingston until at least three or four days after the _Francesca_. Then,
availing myself of the very pressing invitation that I had received from
my new friend Mr Todd, I made my way to his house, where I spent a most
delightful evening with him and his family. Upon learning that I
expected to remain a full week in port, these good people at once
proceeded to plan for my benefit a number of pleasure jaunts to places
of interest in the neighbourhood; but I was far too profoundly impressed
with the importance of the task assigned to me, and the responsibility
that rested upon my young shoulders, to avail myself of their very great
kindness further than to spend an evening or two with them.
I divided my time pretty evenly between the schooner--personally seeing
that no detail was overlooked in preparing her for her important task--
and the various craft that arrived in the port from day to day. Keene,
eager to assist, undertook to penetrate, in mufti, the lower and more
disreputable parts of the town, and to haunt the wharves upon the chance
of picking up some small item of information relating to the mysterious
brig which might prove of service to us. But all our efforts availed us
nothing, for on the eighth day after our arrival we were no better off
than we had been at the beginning. I contrived, however, to filch the
few hours that were necessary to enable me to go up for my examination,
with the result that I passed with flying colours, so the examiners were
kind enough to say. My good friend Sir Timothy at once confirmed my
acting order and presented me with the commission which bestowed upon me
the rank of lieutenant in his Most Gracious Majesty's navy.
On the evening of the eighth day after our arrival at Port Royal I went
ashore to report to the admiral the discouraging fact that I had failed
utterly to obtain any information whatever from any of the inward-bound
ships relative to the piratical brig, for none of them, apparently, had
sighted the craft. Moreover, Jack Keene's enquiries were practically as
unsuccessful as my own; for although he had encountered one or two
doubtful characters frequenting the low taverns near the wharves, who
seemed to have some knowledge of such a vessel, it was all vague
hearsay, and quite valueless. But although we had failed so entirely to
obtain any information, the ship's company had been kept busily at work,
with the result that the schooner was now as perfect in every item and
particular of hull and equipment as human hands could make her. I
therefore wound up my report with the statement that we were ready for
sea, and could sail at literally a moment's notice.
"So much the better," remarked the admiral, "and, since there is nothing
to be gained by further delay, you had better make a start forthwith, so
that you may be able to work your way out through the channel and secure
an offing before nightfall. Now, have you formed any plans for the
conduct of this cruise?"
"Only those of the most general character, sir," replied I. "According
to my reckoning the brig is by this time very nearly, if not quite, at
the rendezvous, where she will refit. I fear, therefore, that there is
not much likelihood of my falling in with her for some time to come--
until she has refitted and is once more at sea, in fact. But, in order
that I may not throw away a possible chance, my idea is to stretch out
toward the middle of the Caribbean, and, having arrived there, to work
to windward over the track that the brig would have to follow if she
were making her way toward the head of the Gulf. Then, if I fail to
fall in with her, it may be worth our while to overhaul the Grenadines--
there must be several small islands among them well adapted as a
rendezvous for a pirate, and there is just a possibility that we may
find her there. Failing that, I do not see that I can do anything else
than work out clear of the islands and haunt the ground where the tracks
of the inward- and outward-bound trade meet, since it seems to me that
that is the spot where we are most likely to find the brig when she
resumes operations."
"Excellent!" exclaimed the old gentleman, approvingly. "You have
thought out the identical scheme that suggested itself to me, and I hope
that by following it you will succeed in laying the fellow by the heels.
Speak every craft that you may fall in with, make enquiries whenever
you have the chance, and perhaps you may be lucky enough to pick up a
slaver or two, and so make the cruise a profitable one in a double
sense; for if that surmise of yours should happen to be correct, that
this pirate brig is the identical craft that stole the slaves from your
prize--the _Dolores_--and afterwards destroyed her, the fellow may have
played the trick on other slavers, in which case they will be glad
enough to give any information that may lead to his capture. And now
the sooner that you are off the better, for you will have none too much
daylight in which to work out clear of the shoals. So, good-bye, my
lad, and good luck to you! Take care of your ship, your crew, and
yourself, and bring the fellow back with you as a prize."
So saying, with a hearty handshake the old gentleman dismissed me, and a
quarter of an hour later the saucy little _Francesca_, in charge of a
pilot, was turning to windward on her way out to the open sea.
The sea breeze lasted us just long enough to enable us to clear the
shoals and handsomely gain an offing of about three miles. Then it died
away and left us wallowing helplessly in the heavy swell that was
running. Meanwhile the sun sank beneath the horizon in one of those
blazes of indescribable glory of colour which seem to be peculiar to the
West Indies. The darkness closed down upon us like a shutter, and the
stars leapt out of the rapidly darkening blue overhead with that soft,
lambent, clarity of light which is never beheld save in the tropics.
Then, after tumbling about uncomfortably for nearly an hour, we felt the
land breeze, and, squaring away before it, soon ran off into the true
breeze of the trade wind.
The following three weeks passed uneventfully in carrying out the first
part of the programme upon which Sir Timothy and I had agreed, including
a very careful but fruitless search of the entire group of the
Grenadines, between Grenada and Saint Vincent. After this we proceeded
toward the spot which was to be our cruising ground, and called at the
little town of Kingstown, in the latter island, for a few hours, in
order to replenish our supplies and lay in a stock of fruit.
Thus far we had been favoured with splendid weather, but on the fifth
day out from Saint Vincent I observed that the barometer and the wind
were falling simultaneously, and by sunset the trade wind had died away
to nothing. The western half of the sky looked as though it were on
fire, and the horizon in that quarter was piled high with great smears
of dusky, smoky-looking cloud, heavily streaked with long splashes of
vivid orange and crimson colour. As a spectacle it was magnificent, but
the magnificence was gloomy, sombre, and threatening beyond anything
that I had ever beheld. Nevertheless, I had seen skies not altogether
unlike it before, and my experience had taught me that such gorgeously
lurid displays of colour always portended the approach of bad weather,
very frequently of the hurricane type. Furthermore, my "Sailing
Directions for the West Indies" warned me that we were now in a part of
the world which is subject to such terrific outbreaks of atmospheric
strife. I therefore resolved to take time by the forelock. Fortunately
in such small craft as schooners the amount of work involved in the
operation of "snugging-down" is not great, and in less than half an hour
we had got our yards and topmasts down on deck and the whole of our
canvas snugly stowed, with the exception of the foresail, which, having
been close-reefed, remained set, so that we might retain some sort of
command over the vessel.
Meanwhile the calm continued, but although the regular swell showed some
disposition to subside, a heavy cross-swell was rapidly rising, which
caused the schooner to plunge and roll in a jerky, irregular manner, and
with such violence that at length it became almost impossible to stand
without holding on to something, while to attempt to move about became
positively dangerous. To add still further to the unpleasantness of the
situation, the little hooker was constantly shipping water so heavily
over her rail, bows, and taffrail that we were frequently up to our
knees in it, although all the ports had been opened to allow it to run
off.
We contrived to complete all our preparations before it became too dark
to see; and it was well for us that we did so, for when the darkness
came it was a darkness that might be felt, for it was as though we were
hemmed in by great black walls which might be touched by merely
stretching forth one's hand, while the heat of the stagnant atmosphere
was so oppressive as to cause the perspiration to pour from us in
streams. This disagreeable state of affairs continued without break of
any kind until about five bells in the first watch, when a cry of
astonishment and alarm broke from the watch on the forecastle-head at
the sudden appearance on the bowsprit of a ball of light of a sickly
greenish hue, which I immediately recognised as a corposant, although I
had never seen one before, but had frequently heard them spoken of and
described. It was certainly a weird and uncanny sight to behold under
such circumstances, and was well-calculated to strike awe into the minds
of superstitious seamen, both from the suddenness and the mystery of its
appearance, and from its ghostly and unnatural aspect as it poised
itself out there on the end of the spar, clinging tenaciously thereto,
and alternately flattening and elongating as it swayed in unison with
the violent movements of the schooner. And while the men were still
gaping at it, open-mouthed, its sickly radiance faintly illuminating
their faces and causing them to wear the horrible aspect of decomposing
corpses, two others appeared, one on each of the lower mast-heads. For
perhaps two minutes, or it might have been a little longer, these last
two ghostly lanterns swayed and lengthened and contracted with the wild
plungings of the little craft. Then the one on the foremast-head let go
its hold and went drifting away astern until it was lost to sight, while
the one on the mainmast-head came gliding down the spar until it reached
the flooded deck, and vanished as though extinguished by the washing of
the water. While this was happening, the corposant on the bowsprit-end
also let go its hold and came floating inboard along the spar, causing a
regular stampede of the watch, who incontinently came rushing aft as far
as the mainmast, to get out of the way of their uncanny visitor, which,
however, vanished as it reached the knightheads.
"Ah," remarked the gunner, who had charge of the watch, "that means that
we're in for a heavy `blow', sir! I've seen them things often enough
afore, and I've always noticed that when any of 'em comes inboard, like
them two, extra bad weather is sure to foller. I partic'larly remembers
a case in p'int when I was up the Mediterranean in the old _Melampus_.
We was--"
"Listen!" I broke in unceremoniously, as a low, hoarse murmur became
audible above the voice of the gunner, the monotonous swish and splash
of the water across the deck and in over the bulwarks, and the creaking
and groaning of the ship's timbers. "Surely that is the wind coming at
last!"
At the same moment a gust of hot air came screaming and scuffling over
us, square off the starboard beam, causing the foresail to fill suddenly
with a report like that of a gun, and careening the schooner to her
covering board.
"Hard up with your helm, my man; hard up, and let her pay off before
it!" I shouted to the man at the helm, while the sound that I had heard
increased rapidly in volume, and a long line of white foam, rendered
luminous by the phosphorescent state of the water, appeared broad on our
starboard beam, sweeping down upon us with appalling velocity.
Fortunate was it for us that a preliminary puff had come to help us, for
it lasted just long enough to permit the little hooker to gather
steerage way and partially to pay off, far enough, that is to say, to
bring the onrushing hurricane well over her starboard quarter. Indeed,
had the gale happened to strike us square abeam, and with no way on the
ship, I am convinced that she must have inevitably turned turtle with
us. As it was, when, a few minutes later, the wind swooped down upon us
with the fury of a famished wild beast leaping upon its prey, and with a
mad babel of terrifying howls and shrieks that utterly baffles
description, the little vessel heeled down beneath its first stroke
until her lee rail was buried, and the water rose to the level of her
hatchway coamings; and but for the fact that she was at that moment not
only forging ahead, but also paying off, there would have been an end of
all hands, then and there. For what seemed to be, in our anxious
condition, a veritable age, but which was probably no more than a brief
half-minute, the little vessel lay there, quivering in every timber, and
seemed paralysed with terror, as though she were a sentient thing. The
wind yelled and raved through her rigging, and the spindrift and scud-
water--showing ghostly in the phosphorescent light emitted by the
tormented waters--flew over us in blinding, drenching showers. Then,
with a sudden jerk the schooner rose almost upright and, with the water
foaming about her bows to the level of her head rails, she sped away to
leeward at a pace that seemed absolutely impossible to even so swift a
craft as she had proved herself to be.
We scudded thus before the gale for nearly an hour, when, availing
ourselves of a temporary lull in its fury, we brought the schooner to
the wind and hove her to on the starboard tack; but, even then, so
tremendous was the force of the wind that, although she showed to it
nothing but a close-reefed foresail, the little vessel was buried to the
level of her rail.
So violent was the first swoop of the hurricane that the surface of the
ocean was as it were crushed flat by it, and the slightest irregularity
that presented itself was instantly torn away and swept to leeward in
the form of spray. Thus for the first hour or so it was impossible for
the sea to rise. At the end of that time, however, the tormented ocean
began to assert itself, and, although their crests continued to be torn
off by the violence of the wind, the seas steadily rose and gathered
weight, until by midnight the little _Francesca_, was being hove up and
flung about as violently as a cork upon the surface of a turbulent
stream. And now another of the schooner's many good qualities revealed
itself, for, despite the furious violence of both wind and wave, the
little craft rode the raging seas as buoyantly and as daintily as a sea
gull, and shipped not so much as a spoonful of water, excepting, of
course, such as flew on board in the form of spray. Even of that small
quantity we had very little after the schooner had been brought to the
wind, for the tremendous pressure of the gale upon her spars and
rigging, and upon the small area of her close-reefed foresail laid her
over at so steep an angle, and caused her to turn up so bold a weather
side, that most of the spray flew clean over her and was swept away to
leeward.
The temporary lull in the gale, of which we had taken advantage to
heave-to the schooner, lasted only just long enough to enable us to
accomplish that manoeuvre. It was well for us that we availed ourselves
so promptly of the opportunity, for no other occurred; on the contrary,
after that brief lull the gale seemed to increase steadily in fury to
such an extent, indeed, that at length I felt that I should not have
been in the least surprised had the schooner been blown bodily out of
the water and whirled away to leeward like an autumn leaf.
Needless to say, that night was one of intense anxiety to me, for the
responsibility for the safety of the schooner, and all hands aboard her,
rested entirely upon my shoulders. I had already done all that was
possible in the way of precaution, while I felt that, despite the
magnificent behaviour of the little craft, an exceptionally heavy sea
might at any moment catch her at a disadvantage and break aboard her, in
which event she would most probably founder out of hand. So great,
indeed, was my anxiety that I found it impossible to quit the deck for a
moment, although my subordinates were thoroughly steady, trustworthy
men, and had far more experience than myself. With the men forward it
was totally different. Their minds were thoroughly imbued with the
seaman's maxim: "Let those look out who have the watch," and those whose
watch it was below turned in without the slightest hesitation or qualm
of anxiety, trusting implicitly to those in charge of the deck to do
everything that might be necessary to ensure the safety of the ship.
To me it seemed as though that terrible night would never end, and even
when at length the hour of dawn arrived there was no perceptible
amelioration in the conditions. The darkness remained as intense as it
had been at midnight, and it was not until eight bells--in this case
eight o'clock in the morning--that a feeble glimmer of daylight came
filtering through the opaque blackness of the firmament over our heads,
dimly revealing the shapeless masses of flying cloud and scud, and
permitting us to view our surroundings for a space of about a quarter of
a mile. But, contracted as was our view, it was more than sufficient to
impress us with a deep and overwhelming sense of the impotence of man in
the presence of God's power as manifested in this appalling
demonstration of elemental fury. Now, even more than during the hours
of darkness, did we appear to be constantly on the point of being lifted
out of the water by the terrific strength of the wind. As often as the
schooner was hove up on the summit of a sea, and thus exposed to the
full force of the hurricane, we could feel her tremble and perceptibly
lift when the wind struck her beneath her upturned bilge. As for the
sea, I had never seen anything like it before, nor have I since. When
people desire to convey the idea of an exceptionally heavy sea they
speak of it as running "mountains high". In the case of which I am now
speaking the expression appeared to be no exaggeration at all, for as
wave after wave came sweeping down upon us with uplifted, menacing
crest, looking up to that crest from the liquid valley in front of it
seemed like gazing up the side of a mountain which was threatening to
fall upon us and crush us to atoms. Indeed, the wild upward sweep of
the schooner, heeling almost to her beam ends as she was flung aloft
upon the breast of the onrushing wave, was an experience terrifying
enough to turn a man's hair grey. Yet, after watching the movements of
the schooner for about half an hour, and noting how, time after time,
when the little barkie seemed to be trembling on the very brink of
destruction, she unfailingly came to in time to avoid being overwhelmed,
I grew so inured to the experience that I found myself able to go below
and make an excellent breakfast with perfect equanimity.
It was about five bells in the forenoon watch, and it had by that time
grown light enough for us to discern objects at a distance of about a
mile, when, as the schooner was tossed aloft to the crest of an
exceptionally gigantic wave, Simpson--whose watch it was--and I
simultaneously caught sight for a moment of something that, indistinctly
seen as it was through the dense clouds of flying scud-water, had the
appearance of a ship of some kind, directly to windward of us. The next
instant we lost sight of it as we sank into the trough between the wave
that had just passed beneath us and that which was sweeping down upon
us. When we topped this wave soon afterwards, we again caught sight of
the object, and this time held her in view long enough to identify her
as a large brigantine, hove-to, like ourselves, on the starboard tack,
under a storm-staysail. Unlike ourselves, however, she had all her top-
hamper aloft, forward, and seemed to be making desperately bad weather
of it. The glimpses that we caught of her were of course very brief,
and at comparatively long intervals, for it was only when both craft
happened to be on the summit of a wave at the same moment that we were
able to see her. Yet two facts concerning her gradually became clear to
us, the first of which was that she was undoubtedly a slaver--so much
her short, stumpy masts and the enormous longitudinal spread of her
yards told us,--the second was that she was steadily settling down to
leeward at a more rapid rate than ourselves, as was only to be expected
from the fact that she was exposing much more top-hamper to the gale
than we were. It would not be long, therefore, before she would drive
away to leeward of us, probably passing us at no very great distance.
Now, although we were fully convinced that the craft in sight was a
slaver, yet we had no thought whatever of attempting to take her just
then, for the very simple reason that to do so under the circumstances
would be a manifest impossibility. In such an awful sea as was then
running we could only work our guns at very infrequent intervals and
with the utmost difficulty, while, if we were to hit her, we would do so
only by the merest accident. And even if we could contrive by any means
to compel her to surrender to us, we could not take possession of her.
Our interest in her was therefore no greater than that with which a
sailor, caught in a heavy gale, watches the movements of another ship in
the same predicament as his own.
Meanwhile, by imperceptible degrees she was steadily driving down toward
us, until at length she was so close, and so directly to windward of us,
that I almost succeeded in persuading myself that there were moments
when I could catch, through the strong salt smell of the gale, a whiff
of the characteristic odour of a slaver with a living cargo on board.
Nor was I alone in this respect, for both Simpson and the man who was
tending the schooner's helm asserted that they also perceived it. But
now a question arose which, for the moment at least, was even more
important than whether she had or had not slaves aboard, and that was
whether she would pass clear of us or not. She had settled away to
leeward until she had approached us to within a couple of hundred yards,
and as the two craft alternately came to or fell off it alternately
appeared as though the stranger would pass clear of us ahead, or fall
off and run foul of us. The moment had arrived when it became necessary
for one or the other of us to do something to avert a catastrophe; and
as those aboard the brigantine gave no indication of a disposition to
bestir themselves I ordered Simpson to have the fore-staysail loosed and
set, intending to forge ahead and leave room for the other craft to pass
athwart our stern. The fore-staysail sheet was accordingly hauled aft,
and four men laid out on the bowsprit to loose the sail. This was soon
done, and then, when we next settled into the trough of the sea, and
were consequently becalmed for the moment, the halyards were manned and
the sail hoisted. The brigantine was by this time so dangerously near
to us that, even when we were both sunk in the trough of the sea, it was
possible for us to see her mast-heads over the crest of the intervening
wave, and I now kept my eye on these with momentarily increasing
anxiety, for it appeared to me that we were in perilous proximity to a
hideous disaster. And then, as the schooner swept upward on the breast
of the oncoming wave, I saw the spars of the brigantine forging slowly
ahead as the ship to which they belonged fell off, and my heart stood
still and my blood froze with horror, for it became apparent that the
two craft were sheering inward toward each other, and that nothing short
of a miracle could prevent the brigantine from falling foul of and
destroying us. For as her spars rose higher into view I saw that her
people, too, had set their fore-staysail, and that the two craft,
impelled by their additional spread of sail, were rushing headlong
toward each other.