"Barque ahoy! Let fly your sheets and halliards at once, and surrender,
or I will fire into you!"
"All right," was the reply from the French captain; "you have won the
game, monsieur, so I will not attempt to rob you of the credit of
victory. You managed the affair exceedingly well, _mon ami_, and have
taught me a lesson I shall remember for the rest of my life. You may
come on board and take possession as soon as you like."
He then gave the necessary orders in French to his crew; the halliards
and sheets were let fly on board the _Aurora_, George reducing sail at
the same time in the brig, and the two vessels, losing way, began
gradually to drop into the rear portion of the convoy.
Captain Leicester did not, however, accept the French captain's
invitation to go on board and take possession once more of his own ship;
that proceeding would have been just a trifle too risky. He had the
game in his own hands, and intended to keep it there; so he quietly
waited until one of the men-o'-war should come alongside, as he knew
would soon be the case, in response to his signal.
In a short time another brig was seen approaching under a perfect cloud
of sail, an unmistakably English gun-brig this time, however. Sweeping
up on the port quarter of George's prize, an officer sprang into the
main-rigging, and hailed--
"Brig ahoy! What brig is that?"
"The _Jeune Virginie_, French privateer," answered George. "She
managed, somehow, to slip in among the fleet unobserved in the darkness,
and threw a heavy boarding-party in on the deck of my vessel--the
_Aurora_ I suspected her designs just in time, however, and as her crew
boarded me, I boarded her, and succeeded in taking possession; the two
ships separating immediately and thus preventing the return of the
French to their own craft."
"Ah, I see," remarked the officer. "You effected an exchange of
ships--`choppee for changee--a black dog for a blue monkey,' eh? And
now you want us to get your own ship back for you?"
"Not exactly," answered George with a laugh; "I have already forced her
to surrender; that is the craft--the barque immediately under my lee.
But I shall feel obliged if you will take charge of the prisoners, and
lend me sufficient men to navigate my prize into port."
"Um; well, I really do not quite know about that. I will man your prize
for you to-night; but you must see the commodore about the matter in the
morning; if he will authorise me to lend you a prize-crew, of course I
shall be very happy. By the way, where did the Frenchman come from?"
"When I saw the craft first, she was about a couple of cables' lengths
directly astern of us," answered Leicester.
"She was, eh!" remarked the officer. "Well, there will be a pretty row
to-morrow about her being allowed to slip in undetected. I will send a
boat on board your own ship at once, to remove the prisoners; and, that
done, I will tell off a crew to man your prize for you."
This was accordingly done, and an hour after the arrival of the
_Throstle_ upon the scene, George and his crew were once more
comfortably established on board their own ship.
On the following morning the affair was officially reported to the
commodore, who put himself into a tremendous passion about it, declaring
that such an occurrence reflected indelible disgrace upon the whole
British navy, and that he would bring to court-martial every one of the
officers belonging to the convoying ships;--which, however, seeing that
at bottom he was a fine, good-hearted old fellow, he never did. And
after abusing everybody else, he sent for George, complimented him upon
his gallantry publicly on the quarterdeck of the _Tremendous_, offered
to obtain a commission for him (an offer which our hero was foolish
enough to decline), and gave his hearty consent to the proposed
borrowing of a prize-crew.
But the affair did not by any means end here; for on the following
night, which was almost as dark as the preceding one, three ships
belonging to the merchant-fleet under convoy gave an unusual and
altogether extraordinary amount of trouble to the captains of the
gun-brigs by their persistent straggling; and, suspicion being at length
aroused, they were all found to be in the hands of French prize-crews,
having been surprised and captured by the _Jeune Virginie_ immediately
prior to her unsuccessful attempt upon the _Aurora_. Had they been only
a little less anxious to effect their escape, they might, as the event
proved, have accomplished it without the slightest difficulty.
About 2 p.m. on the day following the recapture of these three vessels,
the weather being at the time stark calm, with an overcast sky, the
signal to "shorten sail and prepare for bad weather," was exhibited on
board the commodore's ship--the old _Tremendous_. It was very difficult
to make out the signal, the flags hanging from the masthead in such
close, motionless folds that it was almost impossible to identify them;
so, after a long and anxious scrutiny of them through his telescope,
George, thinking he must surely have misinterpreted the message, dived
below to take a look at his barometer. A single glance at it was
sufficient to show him that he was not mistaken, the mercury having
fallen a full inch in little more than two hours.
When he returned to the deck again, which he did immediately, the
various ships were lying with their heads all round the compass, the
merchantmen showing no signs that they understood the signal; but on
board the men-o'-war the crews were seen to be very busy reefing
topsails; the topgallant and royal-masts and yards being already sent
down on deck.
Captain Leicester lost no time in following their example, as far as he
was able. To send down on deck any of his top-hamper, with his limited
crew, was of course quite out of the question, but he called all hands,
and, hurrying them aloft, set them to work, first to furl all the light
upper canvas, and then to close-reef both topsails. This done, he
ordered them to furl the main and fore courses, which were already
clewed up.
Part of the crew were already on the main-yard, and the remainder,
having completed the reefing of the fore-topsail, had descended from
aloft forward and were on their way up the main-rigging to assist in the
stowing of the main-sail, when a heavy black, threatening-looking
cloud-bank, which lay stretched along the western horizon, was seen to
suddenly burst open, revealing a broad copper-tinted rent, which widened
with alarming rapidity.
George's quick eye detected the change in an instant, and knowing what
it meant, and that there was no time to lose, hailed the crew with a
loud shout of--
"Now then, my lads, look alive aloft there, and toss up that main-sail
smartly. If you are quick about it, you may yet get the gaskets round
it before the gale strikes us; if you are not, we shall lose the sail,
and very probably some of you, too."
The men answered with a cheery "Ay, ay, sir," and set to work with a
will, Leicester and the chief mate springing aft to the wheel at the
same moment.
In the meantime the broad yellow rent in the clouds to the westward had
spread very considerably, the vapour overhead had gathered way, and was
scudding rapidly across the sky in an easterly direction, and already,
upon the western horizon, a long, rapidly advancing line of white
foaming water gave unmistakable indications of the close proximity of
the hurricane. The old _Tremendous_ now did what she could to hurry up
the laggards, by firing rapid signal-guns; and the crews of the several
ships, waking up at last, were seen swarming aloft, when it was too
late, to shorten sail.
The _Aurora_ was lying with her head pointed to the southward, with her
starboard broadside presented square to the wind, when the gale first
struck her. Her skipper, anxious to save his canvas, if possible, kept
his men aloft as long as he dared, urging and encouraging them with his
voice to exert themselves to their utmost; but when he saw the old
_Tremendous_ bow under the first stroke of the blast as though she meant
to "turn the turtle" altogether, he thought it was high time to look to
the safety of his crew.
"Make fast, and come down at once, lads," he shouted; "down with you,
for your lives; the canvas must take care of itself now."
Startled by the anxious sharpness of the hail, the men hurriedly knotted
the gaskets, just as they were, and scuttled in off the yard like so
many frightened squirrels.
They were all in the main-rigging when the hurricane burst upon the
ship. With a terrific, unearthly streaming roar it rushed upon her, and
the barque, as if conscious of her utter inability to withstand its
tremendous strength, instantly went over on her beam-ends, with her
lower yard-arms dipping into the water. The men in the lee-rigging were
almost completely sheltered by the hull of the ship, and they had
therefore but little difficulty in holding on. But they were obliged to
remain where they were, the lower portion of the shrouds being buried
some eight feet deep in water, thus precluding the possibility of the
men descending to the deck; whilst to go aloft again and endeavour to
descend to windward, was as much as their lives were worth. They had a
practical illustration of this in the fact that two of the men in the
weather shrouds were actually torn from their hold, and dashed with such
violence against the main-top that one man had his arm, and the other,
three of his ribs broken.
Captain Leicester, on seeing the near approach of the hurricane, had,
after hailing his men to come down from aloft, lashed the wheel
hard-a-starboard, and then, accompanied by Mr Bowen, he hurried away to
the foot of the main-mast, where they cast off the starboard fore-braces
and hauled in upon the larboard until they had braced the topsail as
sharp up as it was possible for two men to get it. The result of this
manoeuvre was that, when the gale struck the _Aurora_, her main-topsail,
which was a-shiver, was blown clean out of the bolt-ropes in an instant,
as also was the foresail and the partially-stowed main-sail; whilst the
fore-topsail was strongly filled at once, and being luckily a new sail,
and standing the strain upon it bravely, it quickly began to drag the
ship through the water. As soon as she gathered way, her bows began to
pay off, and presently she recovered her upright position with a jerk
which snapped both her topgallant-masts close off by the caps.
The wheel was now righted, and away the _Aurora_ went, scudding dead
before it, under her close-reefed fore-topsail only. The crew now made
the best of their way down on deck, the head-yards were squared, and an
effort was made to clear away the wreck, two of the men volunteering
for, and succeeding in, the dangerous task of going aloft to cut away
the fore and main-topgallant rigging.
George now had time to look about him a little, and observe the state of
affairs prevailing outside his own ship. On all sides were to be seen
ships--men-o'-war as well as merchantmen--scudding, like his own, before
the irresistible fury of the gale. Nearly every ship had suffered
damage of some sort, either to sails, spars, or rigging; and out of them
all, very few had come better out of the first buffet than the _Aurora_.
Here was to be seen a craft with topgallant-masts and jib-boom gone,
and her canvas hanging from her yards in long tattered streamers; there
another with nothing standing above her lower mastheads; here a barque
with her main-yard carried away; there a stately ship with her
mizzenmast and all attached still towing astern, and the _crew_ busy
cutting away at the rigging which held the shattered spar; here another
fine ship, totally dismasted; and there, now far astern, more than one
dark object lying low in the water, and but imperfectly seen through the
flying spindrift, which George Leicester knew only too well were the
hulls of ships which had capsized, and whose crews would be left to
perish miserably, since no human power could possibly save them in an
hour like that.
It soon became evident to the crew of the _Aurora_, that though they had
so far escaped with comparatively slight damage, they could certainly
not regard their ship as by any means free from peril so long as they
remained in the company of the rest of the fleet. So many ships
scudding together almost helplessly before the fury of the gale could
not but prove a very great source of danger to each other, now that it
was no longer possible to regulate their rate of sailing; and George
soon found himself confronted with a new anxiety, that of being in
danger of a collision. The sea was rising with extraordinary rapidity,
and the various craft soon began to steer wildly, sheering so rankly,
first to one side and then to the other, that many of them threatened to
broach-to altogether.
The _Aurora_ was a very smart little vessel under her canvas, as she now
proved by keeping pace with two large ships, one of which lay on her
port-bow, and the other on her starboard beam. So even was the rate of
sailing of the three that neither of them, anxious as each was to
accomplish the feat, could draw away from the others; and the strength
of the gale was such that it was equally impossible for them either to
make or to reduce sail. There they remained, therefore, maintaining
exactly the same relative position to each other, now sheering
uncontrollably inwards, so that each man held his breath and braced
himself for the shock which seemed inevitable, and which, under such
circumstances, must result in the total destruction of both ships; and,
anon, surging as wildly off in opposite directions.
To add still further to Captain Leicester's embarrassments, the trio of
ships were rapidly overhauling a fourth, which was wallowing along dead
ahead of the _Aurora_. She was a large craft, apparently of about eight
hundred tons measurement; her three topmasts were carried away close off
by the caps; the wreckage was all lying inboard, cumbering up her decks;
her courses and staysails were blown to ribbons; and she was steering so
badly that it was difficult to say _where_ she was going, except that
her general direction was to leeward. George saw that, should he
overtake this vessel before getting clear of the two which already
hampered him so seriously, a catastrophe was inevitable, and he speedily
made up his mind that the _Aurora's_ speed _must_ be sufficiently
reduced to allow of her dropping astern and into the wake of one or the
other of his present consorts. The only means by which, under the
circumstances, this could be accomplished was by sacrificing the
fore-topsail; and he accordingly called for a volunteer to assist him in
the task. Mr Bowen and the carpenter both proffered their services,
and, selecting the latter, and requesting the chief mate to take charge
of the deck and superintend the conning of the ship, George went
forward, followed by the carpenter, and led the way aloft. Now that
they were scudding before it, the strength of the wind was no longer
felt to its full extent; it was still powerful enough, however, to make
the journey aloft full of peril, and the two adventurers were compelled
to make frequent pauses on their way, in order to avoid being blown out
of the rigging. At length, however, they reached the yard, and,
producing their knives, began to work their way outwards from the mast,
one toward each yard-arm, cutting the seizings as they came to them.
Their task was soon accomplished; for when half the seizings were cut,
the wind saved them all further trouble by carrying away the remainder;
the sail gave one terrific flap--which sprung the fore-yard--and then,
tearing out of its bolt-ropes, went soaring away ahead of them, like a
flake of cloud.
Thus relieved, the _Aurora's_ speed sensibly diminished and by the time
that George was once more down on deck, they were able, by watching
their opportunity, to sheer in under the stern of the ship which had
before lain upon their port-bow, and thus place the _Aurora_
comparatively out of harm's way.
They were only just in time. The ship ahead was overtaken, and, in
sheering into her new position, the _Aurora_ was compelled to shave
close past the stranger's stern. Glancing up at her as they shot past,
with a feeling of deep gratitude at their escape, George saw a little
crowd of passengers huddled together upon her poop, like frightened
sheep. They were all looking at the _Aurora_, evidently fully aware of
the danger from which they had so narrowly escaped; and among them
George suddenly recognised a face which he had more than half hoped he
would never see again--the face of his successful rival, as he believed
him to be, Lieutenant Walford.
George waved his hand in recognition, the salutation was half
reluctantly returned, and then the two craft separated; but not before
George had had time to read the name painted on her stern--the _Princess
Royal_, of London.