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Title: The Red Rover

Author: James Fenimore Cooper

Release Date: March 2, 2004 [EBook #11409]
[Most recently updated: February 17, 2020]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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The Red Rover

A Tale.

by James Fenimore Cooper

“Ye speak like honest men: pray God ye prove so”

Complete in One Volume

1855

Contents

 Preface.
 Chapter I.
 Chapter II.
 Chapter III.
 Chapter IV.
 Chapter V.
 Chapter VI.
 Chapter VII.
 Chapter VIII.
 Chapter IX.
 Chapter X.
 Chapter XI.
 Chapter XII.
 Chapter XIII.
 Chapter XIV.
 Chapter XV.
 Chapter XVI.
 Chapter XVII.
 Chapter XVIII.
 Chapter XIX.
 Chapter XX.
 Chapter XXI.
 Chapter XXII.
 Chapter XXIII.
 Chapter XXIV.
 Chapter XXV.
 Chapter XXVI.
 Chapter XXVII.
 Chapter XXVIII.
 Chapter XXIX.
 Chapter XXX.
 Chapter XXXI.
 Chapter XXXII.




Preface.


The Writer felt it necessary, on a former occasion, to state, that, in
sketching his marine life, he did not deem himself obliged to adhere,
very closely, to the chronological order of nautical improvements. It
is believed that no very great violation of dates will be found in the
following pages. If any keen-eyed critic of the ocean, however, should
happen to detect a rope rove through the wrong leading-block, or a term
spelt in such a manner as to destroy its true sound, he is admonished
of the duty of ascribing the circumstances, in charity, to any thing
but ignorance on the part of a brother. It must be remembered that
there is an undue proportion of landsmen employed in the mechanical as
well as the more spiritual part of book-making; a fact which, in
itself, accounts for the numberless imperfections that still embarrass
the respective departments of the occupation. In due time, no doubt, a
remedy will be found for this crying evil; and then the world may hope
to see the several branches of the trade a little better ordered. The
true Augustan age of literature can never exist until works shall be as
accurate, in their typography, as a “log book,” and as sententious, in
their matter, as a “watch-bill.”

On the less important point of the materials, which are very possibly
used to so little advantage in his present effort, the Writer does not
intend to be very communicative, if their truth be not apparent, by the
manner in which he has set forth the events in the tale itself, he must
be content to lie under the imputation of having disfigured it, by his
own clumsiness. All testimony must, in the nature of things, resolve
itself into three great classes—the positive, the negative, and the
circumstantial. The first and the last are universally admitted to be
entitled to the most consideration, since the third can only be
resorted to in the absence of the two others. Of the positive evidence
of the verity of its contents, the book itself is a striking proof. It
is hoped, also, that there is no want of circumstance to support this
desirable character. If these two opening points be admitted those who
may be still disposed to cavil are left to the full enjoyment of their
negation, with which the Writer wishes them just as much success as the
question may merit.

To W. B. Shubrick, Esquire, U. S. Navy.


In submitting this hastily-composed and imperfect picture of a few
scenes, peculiar to the profession, to your notice, dear Shubrick, I
trust much more to your kind feelings than to any merit in the
execution. Such as it may be, however, the book is offered as another
tribute to the constant esteem and friendship of

The Author.




The Red Rover.




Chapter I.

Par. “Mars dote on you for his novices.”

_All’s Well that ends Well._


No one, who is familiar with the bustle and activity of an American
commercial town, would recognize, in the repose which now reigns in the
ancient mart of Rhode Island, a place that, in its day, has been ranked
amongst the most important ports along the whole line of our extended
coast. It would seem, at the first glance, that nature had expressly
fashioned the spot to anticipate the wants and to realize the wishes of
the mariner. Enjoying the four great requisites of a safe and
commodious haven, a placid basin, an outer harbour, and a convenient
roadstead, with a clear offing, Newport appeared, to the eyes of our
European ancestors, designed to shelter fleets and to nurse a race of
hardy and expert seamen. Though the latter anticipation has not been
entirely disappointed, how little has reality answered to expectation
in respect to the former. A successful rival has arisen, even in the
immediate vicinity of this seeming favourite of nature, to defeat all
the calculations of mercantile sagacity, and to add another to the
thousand existing evidences “that the wisdom of man is foolishness.”

There are few towns of any magnitude, within our broad territories, in
which so little change has been effected in half a century as in
Newport. Until the vast resources of the interior were developed the
beautiful island on which it stands was a chosen retreat of the
affluent planters of the south, from the heats and diseases of their
burning climate. Here they resorted in crowds, to breathe the
invigorating breezes of the sea. Subjects of the same government, the
inhabitants of the Carolinas and of Jamaica met here, in amity, to
compare their respective habits and policies, and to strengthen each
other in a common delusion, which the descendants of both, in the third
generation, are beginning to perceive and to regret.

The communion left, on the simple and unpractised offspring of the
Puritans, its impression both of good and evil. The inhabitants of the
country, while they derived, from the intercourse, a portion of that
bland and graceful courtesy for which the gentry of the southern
British colonies were so distinguished did not fail to imbibe some of
those peculiar notions, concerning the distinctions in the races of
men, for which they are no less remarkable Rhode Island was the
foremost among the New England provinces to recede from the manners and
opinions of their simple ancestors. The first shock was given, through
her, to that rigid and ungracious deportment which was once believed a
necessary concomitant of true religion, a sort of outward pledge of the
healthful condition of the inward man; and it was also through her that
the first palpable departure was made from those purifying principles
which might serve as an apology for even far more repulsive exteriors.
By a singular combination of circumstances and qualities, which is,
however, no less true than perplexing, the merchants of Newport were
becoming, at the same time, both slave-dealers and gentlemen.

Whatever might have been the moral condition of its proprietors at the
precise period of 1759, the island itself was never more enticing and
lovely. Its swelling crests were still crowned with the wood of
centuries; its little vales were then covered with the living verdure
of the north; and its unpretending but neat and comfortable villas lay
sheltered in groves, and embedded in flowers. The beauty and fertility
of the place gained for it a name which, probably, expressed far more
than was, at that early day, properly understood. The inhabitants of
the country styled their possessions the “Garden of America.” Neither
were their guests, from the scorching plains of the south, reluctant to
concede so imposing a title to distinction. The appellation descended
even to our own time; nor was it entirely abandoned, until the
traveller had the means of contemplating the thousand broad and lovely
vallies which, fifty years ago, lay buried in the dense shadows of the
forest.

The date we have just named was a period fraught with the deepest
interest to the British possessions on this Continent. A bloody and
vindictive war, which had been commenced in defeat and disgrace, was
about to end in triumph. France was deprived of the last of her
possessions on the main, while the immense region which lay between the
bay of Hudson and the territories of Spain submitted to the power of
England. The colonists had shared largely in contributing to the
success of the mother country. Losses and contumely, that had been
incurred by the besotting prejudices of European commanders were
beginning to be forgotten in the pride of success. The blunders of
Braddock, the indolence of Loudon, and the impotency of Abercrombie,
were repaired by the vigour of Amherst, and the genius of Wolfe. In
every quarter of the globe the arms of Britain were triumphant. The
loyal provincials were among the loudest in their exultations and
rejoicings; wilfully shutting their eyes to the scanty meed of applause
that a powerful people ever reluctantly bestows on its dependants, as
though love of glory, like avarice, increases by its means of
indulgence.

The system of oppression and misrule, which hastened a separation that
sooner or later must have occurred, had not yet commenced. The mother
country, if not just, was still complaisant. Like all old and great
nations, she was indulging in the pleasing, but dangerous, enjoyment of
self-contemplation. The qualities and services of a race, who were
believed to be inferior, were, however, soon forgotten; or, if
remembered, it was in order to be misrepresented and vituperated. As
this feeling increased with the discontent of the civil dissensions, it
led to still more striking injustice, and greater folly. Men who, from
their observations, should have known better, were not ashamed to
proclaim, even in the highest council of the nation, their ignorance of
the character of a people with whom they had mingled their blood.
Self-esteem gave value to the opinions of fools. It was under this
soothing infatuation that veterans were heard to disgrace their noble
profession, by boastings that should have been hushed in the mouth of a
soldier of the carpet; it was under this infatuation that Burgoyne
gave, in the Commons of England, that memorable promise of marching
from Quebec to Boston, with a force he saw fit to name—a pledge that he
afterwards redeemed by going over the same ground, with twice the
number of followers, as captives; and it was under this infatuation
that England subsequently threw away her hundred thousand lives, and
lavished her hundred millions of treasure.

The history of that memorable struggle is familiar to every American.
Content with the knowledge that his country triumphed, he is willing to
let the glorious result take its proper place in the pages of history.
He sees that her empire rests on a broad and natural foundation, which
needs no support from venal pens; and, happily for his peace of mind,
no less than for his character, he feels that the prosperity of the
Republic is not to be sought in the degradation of surrounding nations.

Our present purpose leads us back to the period of calm which preceded
the storm of the Revolution. In the early days of the month of October
1759, Newport, like every other town in America, was filled with the
mingled sentiment of grief and joy. The inhabitants mourned the fall of
Wolfe while they triumphed in his victory. Quebec, the strong-hold of
the Canadas, and the last place of any importance held by a people whom
they had been educated to believe were their natural enemies, had just
changed its masters. That loyalty to the Crown of England, which
endured so much before the strange principle became extinct, was then
at its height; and probably the colonist was not to be found who did
not, in some measure, identify his own honour with the fancied glory of
the head of the house of Brunswick. The day on which the action of our
tale commences had been expressly set apart to manifest the sympathy of
the good people of the town, and its vicinity, in the success of the
royal arms. It had opened, as thousands of days have opened since, with
the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon; and the population had,
at an early hour, poured into the streets of the place, with that
determined zeal in the cause of merriment, which ordinarily makes
preconcerted joy so dull an amusement. The chosen orator of the day had
exhibited his eloquence, in a sort of prosaic monody in praise of the
dead hero, and had sufficiently manifested his loyalty, by laying the
glory, not only of that sacrifice, but all that had been reaped by so
many thousands of his brave companions also, most humbly at the foot of
the throne.

Content with these demonstrations of their allegiance the inhabitants
began to retire to their dwellings as the sun settled towards those
immense regions which then lay an endless and unexplored wilderness but
which now are teeming with the fruits and enjoyments of civilized life.
The countrymen from the environs, and even from the adjoining main were
beginning to turn their faces towards their distant homes, with that
frugal care which still distinguishes the inhabitants of the country
even in the midst of their greatest abandonment to pleasures, in order
that the approaching evening might not lead them into expenditures
which were not deemed germain to the proper feelings of the occasion.
In short, the excess of the hour was past, and each individual was
returning into the sober channels of his ordinary avocations, with an
earnestness and discretion which proved he was not altogether unmindful
of the time that had been squandered in the display of a spirit that he
already appeared half disposed to consider a little supererogatory.

The sounds of the hammer, the axe, and the saw were again heard in the
place; the windows of more than one shop were half opened, as if its
owner had made a sort of compromise between his interests and his
conscience; and the masters of the only three inns in the town were to
be seen standing before their doors, regarding the retiring countrymen
with eyes that plainly betrayed they were seeking customers among a
people who were always much more ready to sell than to buy. A few noisy
and thoughtless seamen, belonging to the vessels in the haven, together
with some half dozen notorious tavern-hunters were, however, the sole
fruits of all their nods of recognition, inquiries into the welfare of
wives and children, and, in some instances, of open invitations to
alight and drink.

Worldly care, with a constant, though sometimes an oblique, look at the
future state, formed the great characteristic of all that people who
then dwelt in what were called the provinces of New-England. The
business of the day, however, was not forgotten though it was deemed
unnecessary to digest its proceedings in idleness, or over the bottle.
The travellers along the different roads that led into the interior of
the island formed themselves into little knots, in which the policy of
the great national events they had just been commemorating, and the
manner they had been treated by the different individuals selected to
take the lead in the offices of the day, were freely handled, though
still with great deference to the established reputations of the
distinguished parties most concerned. It was every where conceded that
the prayers, which had been in truth a little conversational and
historical, were faultless and searching exercises; and, on the whole,
(though to this opinion there were some clients of an advocate adverse
to the orator, who were moderate dissenters) it was established, that a
more eloquent oration had never issued from the mouth of man, than had
that day been delivered in their presence. Precisely in the same temper
was the subject discussed by the workmen on a ship, which was then
building in the harbour, and which, in the same spirit of provincial
admiration that has since immortalized so many edifices, bridges, and
even individuals, within their several precincts, was confidently
affirmed to be the rarest specimen then extant of the nice proportions
of naval architecture!

Of the orator himself it may be necessary to say a word, in order that
so remarkable an intellectual prodigy should fill his proper place in
our frail and short-lived catalogue of the worthies of that day. He was
the usual oracle of his neighbourhood, when a condensation of its ideas
on any great event, like the one just mentioned, became necessary. His
learning was justly computed, by comparison, to be of the most profound
and erudite character; and it was very truly affirmed to have
astonished more than one European scholar, who had been tempted, by a
fame which, like heat, was only the more intense from its being so
confined, to grapple with him on the arena of ancient literature. He
was a man who knew how to improve these high gifts to his exclusive
advantage. In but one instance had he ever been thrown enough off his
guard to commit an act that had a tendency to depress the reputation he
had gained in this manner; and that was, in permitting one of his
laboured flights of eloquence to be printed; or, as his more witty
though less successful rival, the only other lawyer in the place,
expressed it, in suffering one of his _fugitive_ essays to be _caught._
But even this experiment, whatever might have been its effects abroad,
served to confirm his renown at home. He now stood before his admirers
in all the dignity of types; and it was in vain for that miserable
tribe of “animalculæ, who live by feeding on the body of genius,” to
attempt to undermine a reputation that was embalmed in the faith of so
many parishes. The brochure was diligently scattered through the
provinces, lauded around the tea-pot, openly extolled in the prints—by
some kindred spirit, as was manifest in the striking similarity of
style—and by one believer, more zealous or perhaps more interested than
the rest, actually put on board the next ship which sailed for “home,”
as England was then affectionately termed, enclosed in an envelope
which bore an address no less imposing than the Majesty of Britain. Its
effect on the straight-going mind of the dogmatic German, who then
filled the throne of the Conqueror, was never known, though they, who
were in the secret of the transmission, long looked, in vain, for the
signal reward that was to follow so striking an exhibition of human
intellect.

Notwithstanding these high and beneficent gifts, their possessor was
now as unconsciously engaged in that portion of his professional
labours which bore the strongest resemblance to the occupation of a
scrivener, as though nature, in bestowing such rare endowments had
denied him the phrenological quality of self-esteem. A critical
observer might, however, have seen, or fancied that he saw, in the
forced humility of his countenance, certain gleamings of a triumph that
should not properly be traced to the fall of Quebec. The habit of
appearing meek had, however, united with a frugal regard for the
precious and irreclaimable minutes, in producing this extraordinary
diligence in a pursuit of a character that was so humble, when compared
with his recent mental efforts.

Leaving this gifted favourite of fortune and nature, we shall pass to
an entirely different individual, and to another quarter of the place.
The spot, to which we wish now to transport the reader, was neither
more nor less than the shop of a tailor, who did not disdain to perform
the most minute offices of his vocation in his own heedful person. The
humble edifice stood at no great distance from the water, in the skirts
of the town, and in such a situation as to enable its occupant to look
out upon the loveliness of the inner basin, and, through a vista cut by
the element between islands, even upon the lake-like scenery of the
outer harbour. A small, though little frequented wharf lay before his
door, while a certain air of negligence, and the absence of bustle,
sufficiently manifested that the place itself was not the immediate
site of the much-boasted commercial prosperity of the port.

The afternoon was like a morning in spring, the breeze which
occasionally rippled the basin possessing that peculiarly bland
influence which is so often felt in the American autumn; and the worthy
mechanic laboured at his calling, seated on his shop board, at an open
window, far better satisfied with himself than many of those whose
fortune it is to be placed in state, beneath canopies of velvet and
gold. On the outer side of the little building, a tall, awkward, but
vigorous and well-formed countryman was lounging, with one shoulder
placed against the side of the shop, as if his legs found the task of
supporting his heavy frame too grievous to be endured with out
assistance, seemingly in waiting for the completion of the garment at
which the other toiled, and with which he intended to adorn the graces
of his person, in an adjoining parish, on the succeeding sabbath.

In order to render the minutes shorter, and, possibly in indulgence to
a powerful propensity to talk, of which he who wielded the needle was
somewhat the subject, but few of the passing moments were suffered to
escape without a word from one or the other of the parties. As the
subject of their discourse had a direct reference to the principal
matter of our tale, we shall take leave to give such portions of it to
the reader as we deem most relevant to a clear exposition of that which
is to follow. The latter will always bear in mind, that he who worked
was a man drawing into the wane of life; that he bore about him the
appearance of one who, either from incompetency or from some fatality
of fortune, had been doomed to struggle through the world, keeping
poverty from his residence only by the aid of great industry and rigid
frugality; and that the idler was a youth of an age and condition that
the acquisition of an entire set of habiliments formed to him a sort of
era in his adventures.

“Yes.” exclaimed the indefatigable shaper of cloth, with a species of
sigh which might have been equally construed into an evidence of the
fulness of his mental enjoyment, or of the excess of his bodily
labours; “yes, smarter sayings have seldom fallen from the lips of man,
than such as the squire pour’d out this very day. When he spoke of the
plains of father Abraham, and of the smoke and thunder of the battle,
Pardon, it stirred up such stomachy feelings in my bosom, that I verily
believe I could have had the heart to throw aside the thimble, and go
forth myself, to seek glory in battling in the cause of the King.”

The youth, whose Christian or ‘given’ name, as it is even now generally
termed in New-England, had been intended, by his pious sponsors, humbly
to express his future hopes, turned his head towards the heroic tailor,
with an expression of drollery about the eye, that proved nature had
not been niggardly in the gift of humour, however the quality was
suppressed by the restraints of a very peculiar manner, and no less
peculiar education.

“There’s an opening now, neighbour Homespun, for an ambitious man,” he
said, “sin’ his Majesty has lost his stoutest general.”

“Yes, yes,” returned the individual who, either in his youth or in his
age, had made so capital a blunder in the choice of a profession, “a
fine and promising chance it is for one who counts but five-and-twenty;
most of my day has gone by, and I must spend the rest of it here, where
you see me, between buckram and osnaburghs—who put the dye into your
cloth, Pardy? it is the best laid-in bark I’ve fingered this fall.”

“Let the old woman alone for giving the lasting colour to her web; I’ll
engage, neighbour Homespun, provided you furnish the proper fit,
there’ll not be a better dress’d lad on the island than my own mother’s
son! But, sin’ you cannot be a general good-man, you’ll have the
comfort of knowing there’ll be no more fighting without you. Every body
agrees the French won’t hold out much longer, and then we must have a
peace for want of enemies.”

“So best, so best, boy; for one, who has seen so much of the horrors of
war as I, knows how to put a rational value on the blessings of
tranquillity!”

“Then you ar’n’t altogether unacquainted, good-man, with the new trade
you thought of setting up?”

“I! I have been through five long and bloody wars, and I’ve reason to
thank God that I’ve gone through them all without a scratch so big as
this needle would make. Five long and bloody, ay, and I may say
glorious wars, have I liv’d through in safety!”

“A perilous time it must have been for you, neighbour. But I don’t
remember to have heard of more than two quarrels with the Frenchmen in
my day.”
“You are but a boy, compared to one who has seen the end of his third
score of years. Here is this war that is now so likely to be soon
ended—Heaven, which rules all things in wisdom, be praised for the
same! Then there was the business of ’45, when the bold Warren sailed
up and down our coasts; a scourge to his Majesty’s enemies, and a
safeguard to all the loyal subjects. Then, there was a business in
Garmany, concerning which we had awful accounts of battles fou’t, in
which men were mowed down like grass falling before the scythe of a
strong arm. That makes three. The fourth was the rebellion of ’15, of
which I pretend not to have seen much, being but a youth at the time;
and the fifth was a dreadful rumour, that was spread through the
provinces, of a general rising among the blacks and Indians, which was
to sweep all us Christians into eternity at a minute’s warning!”

“Well, I had always reckoned you for a home-staying and a peaceable
man, neighbour;” returned the admiring countryman; “nor did I ever
dream that you had seen such serious movings.”

“I have not boasted, Pardon, or I might have added other heavy matters
to the list. There was a great struggle in the East, no longer than the
year ’32, for the Persian throne. You have read of the laws of the
Medes and the Persians: Well, for the very throne that gave forth those
unalterable laws was there a frightful struggle, in which blood ran
like water; but, as it was not in Christendom, I do not account it
among my own experiences; though I might have spoken of the Porteous
mob with great reason, as it took place in another portion of the very
kingdom in which I lived.”

“You must have journeyed much, and been stirring late and early,
good-man, to have seen all these things, and to have got no harm.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve been something of a traveller too, Pardy. Twice have I
been over land to Boston, and once have I sailed through the Great
Sound of Long Island, down to the town of York. It is an awful
undertaking the latter, as it respects the distance, and more
especially because it is needful to pass a place that is likened, by
its name, to the entrance of Tophet.”

“I have often heard the spot call’d ‘Hell Gate’ spoken of, and I may
say, too, that I know a man _well_ who has been through it twice; once
in going to York, and once in coming homeward.”

“He had enough of it, as I’ll engage! Did he tell you of the pot which
tosses and roars as if the biggest of Beelzebub’s fires was burning
beneath, and of the hog’s-back over which the water pitches, as it may
tumble over the Great Falls of the West! Owing to reasonable skill in
our seamen, and uncommon resolution in the passengers, we happily made
a good time of it, through ourselves; though I care not who knows it, I
will own it is a severe trial to the courage to enter that same
dreadful Strait. We cast out our anchors at certain islands, which lie
a few furlongs this side the place, and sent the pinnace, with the
captain and two stout seamen, to reconnoitre the spot, in order to see
if it were in a peaceful state or not. The report being favourable, the
passengers were landed, and the vessel was got through, by the blessing
of Heaven, in safety. We had all reason to rejoice that the prayers of
the congregation were asked before we departed from the peace and
security of our homes!”

“You journeyed round the ‘Gate’ on foot?”—demanded the attentive boor.

“Certain! It would have been a sinful and a blasphemous tempting of
Providence to have done otherwise, seeing that our duty called us to no
such sacrifice. But all that danger is gone by, and so I trust will
that of this bloody war, in which we have both been actors; and then I
humbly hope his sacred Majesty will have leisure to turn his royal mind
to the pirates who infest the coast, and to order some of his stout
naval captains to mete out to the rogues the treatment they are so fond
of giving unto others. It would be a joyful sight to my old eyes to see
the famous and long-hunted Red Rover brought into this very port,
towing at the poop of a King’s cruiser.”

“And is it a desperate villain, he of whom you now make mention?”

“He! There are many he’s in that one, lawless ship, and bloody-minded
and nefarious thieves are they, to the smallest boy. It is
heart-searching and grievous, Pardy, to hear of their evil-doings on
the high seas of the King!”

“I have often heard mention made of the Rover,” returned the
countryman; “but never to enter into any of the intricate particulars
of his knavery.”

“How should you, boy, who live up in the country, know so much of what
is passing on the great deep, as we who dwell in a port that is so much
resorted to by mariners! I am fearful you’ll be making it late home,
Pardon,” he added, glancing his eye at certain lines drawn on his
shop-board, by the aid of which he was enabled to note the progress of
the setting sun. “It is drawing towards the hour of five, and you have
twice that number of miles to go, before you can, by any manner of
means, reach the nearest boundary of your father’s farm.”

“The road is plain, and the people honest,” returned the countryman,
who cared not if it were midnight, provided he could be the bearer of
tidings of some dreadful sea robbery to the ears of those whom he well
knew would throng around him, at his return, to hear the tidings from
the port. “And is he, in truth, so much feared and sought for, as
people say?”

“Is he sought for! Is Tophet sought by a praying Christian? Few there
are on the mighty deep, let them even be as stout for, battle as was
Joshua the great Jewish captain, that would not rather behold the land
than see the top-gallants of that wicked pirate! Men fight for glory,
Pardon, as I may say I have seen, after living through so many wars,
but none love to meet an enemy who hoists a bloody flag at the first
blow, and who is ready to cast both parties into the air, when he finds
the hand of Satan has no longer power to help him.”

“If the rogue is so desperate,” returned the youth straightening his
powerful limbs, with a look of rising pride, “why do not the Island and
the Plantations fit out a coaster in order to bring him in, that he
might get a sight of a wholesome gibbet? Let the drum beat on such a
message through our neighbourhood and I’ll engage that it don’t leave
it without one volunteer at least.”

“So much for not having seen war! Of what use would flails and
pitch-forks prove against men who have sold themselves to the devil?
Often has the Rover been seen at night, or just as the sun has been
going down, by the King’s cruisers, who, having fairly surrounded the
thieves, had good reason to believe that they had them already in the
bilboes; but, when the morning has come, the prize was vanished, by
fair means or by foul!”

“And are the villains so bloody-minded that they are called ‘Red?’”

“Such is the title of their leader,” returned the worthy tailor, who by
this time was swelling with the importance of possessing so interesting
a legend to communicate; “and such is also the name they give to his
vessel; because no man, who has put foot on board her, has ever come
back to say that she has a better or a worse; that is, no honest
mariner or lucky voyager. The ship is of the size of a King’s sloop,
they say, and of like equipments and form; but she has miraculously
escaped from the hands of many a gallant frigate; and once, it is
whispered for no loyal subject would like to say such a scandalous
thing openly, Pardon, that she lay under the guns of a fifty for an
hour, and seemingly, to all eyes, she sunk like hammered lead to the
bottom. But, just as every body was shaking hands, and wishing his
neighbour joy at so happy a punishment coming over the knaves, a
West-Indiaman came into port, that had been robbed by the Rover on the
morning after the night in which it was thought they had all gone into
eternity together. And what makes the matter worse, boy, while the
King’s ship was careening with her keel out, to stop the holes of
cannon balls, the pirate was sailing up and down the coast, as sound as
the day that the wrights first turned her from their hands!”

“Well, this is unheard of!” returned the countryman, on whom the tale
was beginning to make a sensible impression: “Is she a well-turned and
comely ship to the eye? or is it by any means certain that she is an
actual living vessel at all?”

“Opinions differ. Some say, yes; some say, no. But I am well acquainted
with a man who travelled a week in company with a mariner, who passed
within a hundred feet of her, in a gale of wind. Lucky it was for them,
that the hand of the Lord was felt so powerfully on the deep, and that
the Rover had enough to do to keep his own ship from foundering. The
acquaintance of my friend had a good view of both vessel and captain,
therefore, in perfect safety. He said, that the pirate was a man maybe
half as big again as the tall preacher over on the main, with hair of
the colour of the sun in a fog, and eyes that no man would like to look
upon a second time. He saw him as plainly as I see you; for the knave
stood in the rigging of his ship, beckoning, with a hand as big as a
coat-flap, for the honest trader to keep off, in order that the two
vessels might not do one another damage by coming foul.”

“He was a bold mariner, that trader, to go so nigh such a merciless
rogue.”

“I warrant you, Pardon, it was desperately against his will! But it was
on a night so dark—”

“Dark!” interrupted the other; by what contrivance then did he manage
to see so well?”

“No man can say!” answered the tailor, “but see he did, just in the
manner, and the very things I have named to you. More than that, he
took good note of the vessel, that he might know her, if chance, or
Providence, should ever happen to throw her again into his way. She was
a long, black ship, lying low in the water, like a snake in the grass,
with a desperate wicked look, and altogether of dishonest dimensions.
Then, every body says that she appears to sail faster than the clouds
above, seeming to care little which way the wind blows, and that no one
is a jot safer from her speed than her honesty. According to all that I
have heard, she is something such a craft as yonder slaver, that has
been lying the week past, the Lord knows why, in our outer harbour.”

As the gossipping tailor had necessarily lost many precious moments, in
relating the preceding history he now set about redeeming them with the
utmost diligence, keeping time to the rapid movement of his
needle-hand, by corresponding jerks of his head and shoulders. In the
meanwhile, the bumpkin, whose wondering mind was by this time charged
nearly to bursting with what he had heard, turned his look towards the
vessel the other had pointed out, in order to get the only image that
was now required, to enable him to do fitting credit to so moving a
tale, suitably engraved on his imagination. There was necessarily a
pause, while the respective parties were thus severally occupied. It
was suddenly broken by the tailor, who clipped the thread with which he
had just finished the garment, cast every thing from his hands, threw
his spectacles upon his forehead, and, leaning his arms on his knees in
such a manner as to form a perfect labyrinth with the limbs, he
stretched his body forward so far as to lean out of the window,
riveting his eyes also on the ship, which still attracted the gaze of
his companion.

“Do you know, Pardy,” he said, “that strange thoughts and cruel
misgivings have come over me concerning that very vessel? They say she
is a slaver come in for wood and water, and there she has been a week,
and not a stick bigger than an oar has gone up her side, and I’ll
engage that ten drops from Jamaica have gone on board her, to one from
the spring. Then you may see she is anchored in such a way that but one
of the guns from the battery can touch her; whereas, had she been a
real timid trader, she would naturally have got into a place where, if
a straggling picaroon should come into the port, he would have found
her in the very hottest of the fire.”

“You have an ingenious turn with you, good-man,” returned the wondering
countryman; “now a ship might have lain on the battery island itself,
and I would have hardly noticed the thing.”

“’Tis use and experience, Pardon, that makes men of us all. I should
know something of batteries, having seen so many wars, and I served a
campaign of a week, in that very fort, when the rumour came that the
French were sending cruisers from Louisburg down the coast. For that
matter, my duty was to stand sentinel over that very cannon; and, if I
have done the thing once, I have twenty times squinted along the piece,
to see in what quarter it would send its shot, provided such a calamity
should arrive as that it might become necessary to fire it loaded with
real warlike balls.”

“And who are these?” demanded Pardon, with that species of sluggish
curiosity which had been awakened by the wonders related by the other:
“Are these mariners of the slaver, or are they idle Newporters?”

“Them!” exclaimed the tailor; “sure enough, they are new-comers, and it
may be well to have a closer look at them in these troublesome times!
Here, Nab, take the garment, and press down the seams, you idle hussy;
for neighbour Hopkins is straitened for time, while your tongue is
going like a young lawyer’s in a justice court. Don’t be sparing of
your elbow, girl; for it’s no India muslin that you’ll have under the
iron, but cloth that would do to side a house with. Ah! your mother’s
loom, Pardy, robs the seamster of many an honest job.”

Having thus transferred the remainder of the job from his own hands to
those of an awkward, pouting girl, who was compelled to abandon her
gossip with a neighbour, she went to obey his injunctions, he quickly
removed his own person, notwithstanding a miserable limp with which he
had come into the world, from the shop-board to the open air. As more
important characters are, however, about to be introduced to the
reader, we shall defer the ceremony to the opening of another chapter.




Chapter II.

Sir Toby. “Excellent! I smell a device.”

_Twelfth Night._


The strangers were three in number; for strangers the good-man
Homespun, who knew not only the names but most of the private history
of every man and woman within ten miles of his own residence
immediately proclaimed them to be, in a whisper to his companion; and
strangers, too, of a mysterious and threatening aspect. In order that
others may have an opportunity of judging of the probability of the
latter conjecture, it becomes necessary that a more minute account
should be given of the respective appearances of these individuals,
who, unhappily for their reputations, had the misfortune to be unknown
to the gossipping tailor of Newport.

The one, by far the most imposing in his general mien, was a youth who
had apparently seen some six or seven-and-twenty seasons. That those
seasons had not been entirely made of sunny days, and nights of repose,
was betrayed by the tinges of brown which had been laid on his
features, layer after layer in such constant succession, as to have
changed, to a deep olive, a complexion which had once been fair, and
through which the rich blood was still mantling with the finest glow of
vigorous health. His features were rather noble and manly, than
distinguished for their exactness and symmetry; his nose being far more
bold and prominent than regular in its form, with his brows projecting,
and sufficiently marked to give to the whole of the superior parts of
his face that decided intellectual expression which is already becoming
so common to American physiognomy. The mouth was firm and manly; and,
while he muttered to himself, with a meaning smile, as the curious
tailor drew slowly nigher, it discovered a set of glittering teeth,
that shone the brighter from being cased in so dark a setting. The hair
was a jet black, in thick and confused ringlets; the eyes were very
little larger than common, gray, and, though evidently of a changing
expression, rather leaning to mildness than severity. The form of this
young man was of that happy size which so singularly unites activity
with strength. It seemed to be well knit, while it was justly
proportioned, and strikingly graceful. Though these several personal
qualifications were exhibited under the disadvantages of the perfectly
simple, though neat and rather tastefully disposed, attire of a common
mariner, they were sufficiently imposing to cause the suspicious dealer
in buckram to hesitate before he would venture to address the stranger,
whose eye appeared riveted, by a species of fascination, on the reputed
slaver in the outer harbour. A curl of the upper lip, and another
strange smile, in which scorn was mingled with his mutterings, decided
the vacillating mind of the good-man. Without venturing to disturb a
reverie that seemed so profound, he left the youth leaning against the
head of the pile where he had long been standing, perfectly unconscious
of the presence of any intruder, and turned a little hastily to examine
the rest of the party.

One of the remaining two was a white man, and the other a negro. Both
had passed the middle age, and both in their appearances, furnished the
strongest proofs of long exposure to the severity of climate, and to
numberless tempests. They were dressed in the plain, weather-soiled,
and tarred habiliments of common seamen, and bore about their several
persons all the other unerring evidences of their peculiar profession.
The former was of a short, thick-set powerful frame, in which, by a
happy ordering of nature, a little confirmed perhaps by long habit, the
strength was principally seated about the broad and brawny shoulders,
and strong sinewy arms, as if, in the construction of the man, the
inferior members had been considered of little other use than to
transfer the superior to the different situations in which the former
were to display their energies. His head was in proportion to the more
immediate members; the forehead low, and nearly covered with hair; the
eyes small, obstinate, sometimes fierce, and often dull; the nose snub,
coarse, and vulgar; the mouth large and voracious; the teeth short,
clean, and perfectly sound; and the chin broad, manly, and even
expressive. This singularly constructed personage had taken his seat on
an empty barrel, and, with folded arms, he sat examining the
often-mentioned slaver, occasionally favouring his companion, the
black, with such remarks as were suggested by his observation and great
experience.

The negro occupied a more humble post; one better suited to his subdued
habits and inclinations. In stature, and the peculiar division of
animal force, there was a great resemblance between the two, with the
exception that the latter enjoyed the advantage in height, and even in
proportions. While nature had stamped on his lineaments those
distinguishing marks which characterize the race from which he sprung,
she had not done it to that revolting degree to which her displeasure
against that stricken people is often carried. His features were more
elevated than common; his eye was mild, easily excited to joy, and,
like that of his companion, sometimes humorous. His head was beginning
to be sprinkled with gray, his skin had lost the shining jet colour
which had distinguished it in his youth, and all his limbs and
movements bespoke a man whose frame had been equally indurated and
stiffened by unremitted toil. He sat on a low stone, and seemed
intently employed in tossing pebbles into the air, and shewing his
dexterity by catching them in the hand from which they had just been
cast; an amusement which betrayed alike the natural tendency of his
mind to seek pleasure in trifles, and the absence of those more
elevating feelings which are the fruits of education. The process,
however, furnished a striking exhibition of the physical force of the
negro. In order to conduct this trivial pursuit without incumbrance, he
had rolled the sleeve of his light canvas jacket to the elbow, and laid
bare an arm that might have served as a model for the limb of Hercules.

There was certainly nothing sufficiently imposing about the persons of
either of these individuals to repel the investigations of one as much
influenced by curiosity as our tailor. Instead, however, of yielding
directly to the strong impulse, the honest shaper of cloth chose to
conduct his advance in a manner that should afford to the bumpkin a
striking proof of his boasted sagacity. After making a sign of caution
and intelligence to the latter, he approached slowly from behind, with
a light step, that might give him an opportunity of overhearing any
secret that should unwittingly fall from either of the seamen. His
forethought was followed by no very important results, though it served
to supply his suspicions with all the additional testimony of the
treachery of their characters that could be furnished by evidence so
simple as the mere sound of their voices. As to the words themselves,
though the good-man they might well contain treason, he was compelled
to acknowledge to himself that it was so artfully concealed as to
escape even his acute capacity We leave the reader himself to judge of
the correctness of both opinions.

“This is a pretty bight of a basin, Guinea,” observed the white,
rolling his tobacco in his mouth and turning his eyes, for the first
time in many minutes, from the vessel; “and a spot is it that a man,
who lay on a lee-shore without sticks, might be glad to see his craft
in. Now do I call myself something of a seaman, and yet I cannot
weather upon the philosophy of that fellow, in keeping his ship in the
outer harbour, when he might warp her into this mill-pond in half an
hour. It gives his boats hard duty, dusky S’ip; and that I call making
foul weather of fair!”

The negro had been christened Scipio Africanus, by a species of
witticism which was much more common to the Provinces than it is to the
States of America, and which filled so many of the meaner employments
of the country, in name at least, with the counterparts of the
philosophers, heroes, poets, and princes of Rome. To him it was a
matter of small moment, whether the vessel lay in the offing or in the
port; and, without discontinuing his childish amusement, he manifested
the same, by replying, with great indifference of manner,—

“I s’pose he t’ink all the water inside lie on a top.”

“I tell you, Guinea,” returned the other, in a harsh, positive tone,
“the fellow is a know-nothing! Would any man, who understands the
behaviour of a ship, keep his craft in a roadstead, when he might tie
her, head and stern, in a basin like this?”

“What he call roadstead?” interrupted the negro, seizing at once, with
the avidity of ignorance, on the little oversight of his adversary, in
confounding the outer harbour of Newport with the wilder anchorage
below, and with the usual indifference of all similar people to the
more material matter of whether the objection was at all germain to the
point in controversy; “I never hear ’em call anchoring ground, with
land around it, roadstead afore!”

“Hark ye, mister Gold-coast,” muttered the white, bending his head
aside in a threatening manner, though he still disdained to turn his
eyes on his humble adversary, “if you’ve no wish to wear your shins
parcelled for the next month, gather in the slack of your wit, and have
an eye to the manner in which you let it run again. Just tell me this;
isn’t a port a port? and isn’t an offing an offing?”

As these were two propositions to which even the ingenuity of Scipio
could raise no objection, he wisely declined touching on either,
contenting himself with shaking his head in great self-complacency, and
laughing as heartily, at his imaginary triumph over his companion, as
though he had never known care, nor been the subject of wrong and
humiliation, so long and so patiently endured.

“Ay, ay,” grumbled the white, re-adjusting his person in its former
composed attitude, and again crossing the arms, which had been a little
separated, to give force to the menace against the tender member of the
black, “now you are piping the wind out of your throat like a flock of
long-shore crows, you think you’ve got the best of the matter. The Lord
made a nigger an unrational animal; and an experienced seaman, who has
doubled both Capes, and made all the head-lands atween Fundy and Horn,
has no right to waste his breath in teaching any of the breed! I tell
you, Scipio, since Scipio is your name on the ship’s books, though I’ll
wager a month’s pay against a wooden boat-hook that your father was
known at home as Quashee, and your mother as Quasheeba—therefore do I
tell you, Scipio Africa—which is a name for all your colour, I
believe—that yonder chap, in the outer harbour of this here sea-port is
no judge of an anchorage, or he would drop a kedge mayhap hereaway, in
a line with the southern end of that there small matter of an island,
and hauling his ship up to it, fasten her to the spot with good hempen
cables and iron mud-hooks. Now, look you here, S’ip, at the reason of
the matter,” he continued, in a manner which shewed that the little
skirmish that had just passed was like one of those sudden squalls of
which they had both seen so many, and which were usually so soon
succeeded by corresponding seasons of calm; “look you at the whole
rationality of what I say. He has come into this anchorage either for
something or for nothing. I suppose you are ready to admit that. If for
nothing, he might have found that much outside, and I’ll say no more
about it; but if for something, he could get it off easier, provided
the ship lay hereaway, just where I told you, boy, not a fathom ahead
or astern, than where she is now riding, though the article was no
heavier than a fresh handful of feathers for the captain’s pillow. Now,
if you have any thing to gainsay the reason of this, why, I’m ready to
hear it as a reasonable man, and one who has not forgotten his manners
in learning his philosophy.”

“S’pose a wind come out fresh here, at nor-west,” answered the other,
stretching his brawny arm towards the point of the compass he named,
“and a vessel want to get to sea in a hurry, how you t’ink he get her
far enough up to lay through the weather reach? Ha! you answer me dat;
you great scholar, misser Dick, but you never see ship go in wind’s
teeth, or hear a monkey talk.”

“The black is right!” exclaimed the youth, who, it would seem, had
overheard the dispute, while he appeared otherwise engaged; “the slaver
has left his vessel in the outer harbour, knowing that the wind holds
so much to the westward at this season of the year; and then you see he
keeps his light spars aloft, although it is plain enough, by the manner
in which his sails are furled, that he is strong-handed. Can you make
out, boys, whether he has an anchor under foot, or is he merely riding
by a single cable?”

“The man must be a driveller, to lie in such a tides-way, without
dropping his stream, or at least a kedge, to steady the ship,” returned
the white, with out appearing to think any thing more than the received
practice of seamen necessary to decide the point. “That he is no great
judge of an anchorage, I am ready to allow; but no man, who can keep
things so snug aloft, would think of fastening his ship, for any length
of time, by a single cable, to sheer starboard and port, like that
kicking colt, tied to the tree by a long halter, that we fell in with,
in our passage over land from Boston.”

“’Em got a stream down, and all a rest of he anchors stowed,” said the
black, whose dark eye was glancing understandingly at the vessel, while
he still continued to east his pebbles into the air: “S’pose he jam a
helm hard a-port, misser Harry, and take a tide on he larboard bow,
what you t’ink make him kick and gallop about! Golly! I like to see
Dick, without a foot-rope, ride a colt tied to tree!”

Again the negro enjoyed his humour, by shaking his head, as if his
whole soul was amused by the whimsical image his rude fancy had
conjured, and indulged in a hearty laugh; and again his white companion
muttered certain exceedingly heavy and sententious denunciations. The
young man, who seemed to enter very little into the quarrels and
witticisms of his singular associates, still kept his gaze intently
fastened on the vessel, which to him appeared for the moment, to be the
subject of some extraordinary interest. Shaking his own head, though in
a far graver manner, as if his doubts were drawing to a close, he
added, as the boisterous merriment or the negro ceased,—

“Yes, Scipio, you are right: he rides altogether by his stream, and he
keeps every thing in readiness for a sudden move. In ten minutes he
would carry his ship beyond the fire of the battery, provided he had
but a capful of wind.”

“You appear to be a judge in these matters,” said an unknown voice
behind him.

The youth turned suddenly on his heel, and then for the first time, was
he apprised of the presence of any intruders. The surprise, however,
was not confined to himself; for, as there was another newcomer to be
added to the company, the gossipping tailor was quite as much, or even
more, the subject of astonishment, than any of that party, whom he had
been so intently watching as to have prevented him from observing the
approach of still another utter stranger.

The third individual was a man between thirty and forty, and of a mien
and attire not a little adapted to quicken the already active curiosity
of the good-man Homespun. His person was slight, but afforded the
promise of exceeding agility, and even of vigour, especially when
contrasted with his stature which was scarcely equal to the medium
height of man. His skin had been dazzling as that of woman though a
deep red, which had taken possession of the lower lineaments of his
face, and which was particularly conspicuous on the outline of a fine
aquiline nose, served to destroy all appearance of effeminacy. His hair
was like his complexion, fair and fell about his temples in rich,
glossy, and exuberant curls; His mouth and chin were beautiful in their
formation; but the former was a little scornful and the two together
bore a decided character of voluptuousness. The eye was blue, full
without being prominent, and, though in common placid and even soft,
there were moments when it seemed a little unsettled and wild. He wore
a high conical hat, placed a little on one side, so as to give a
slightly rakish expression to his physiognomy, a riding frock of light
green, breeches of buck-skin, high boots, and spurs. In one of his
hands he carried a small whip, with which, when first seen, he was
cutting the air with an appearance of the utmost indifference to the
surprise occasioned by his sudden interruption.

“I say, sir, you seem to be a judge in these matters,” he repeated,
when he had endured the frowning examination of the young seaman quite
as long as comported with his own patience; “you speak like a man who
feels he has a right to give an opinion!”

“Do you find it remarkable that one should not be ignorant of a
profession that he has diligently pursued for a whole life?”

“Hum! I find it a little remarkable, that one, whose business is that
of a handicraft, should dignify his trade with such a sounding name as
_profession,_ We of the learned science of the law, and who enjoy the
particular smiles of the learned universities, can say no more!”

“Then call it trade; for nothing in common with gentlemen of your craft
is acceptable to a seaman,” retorted the young mariner, turning away
from the intruder with a disgust that he did not affect to conceal.

“A lad of some metal!” muttered the other, with a rapid utterance and a
meaning smile. “Let not such a trifle as a word part us, friend. I
confess my ignorance of all maritime matters, and would gladly learn a
little from one as skilful as yourself in the noble—_profession_. I
think you said something concerning the manner in which yonder ship has
an chored, and of the condition in which they keep things alow and
aloft?”

“_Alow_ and aloft!” exclaimed the young sailor, facing his interrogator
with a stare that was quite as expressive as his recent disgust.

“Alow and aloft!” calmly repeated the other.

“I spoke of her neatness aloft, but do not affect to judge of things
below at this distance.”

“Then it was my error; but you will have pity on the ignorance of one
who is so new to the _profession_. As I have intimated, I am no more
than an unworthy barrister, in the service of his Majesty, expressly
sent from home on a particular errand. It it were not a pitiful pun, I
might add, I am not yet—judge.”

“No doubt you will soon arrive at that distinction,” returned the
other, “if his Majesty’s ministers have any just conceptions of modest
merit; unless, indeed you should happen to be prematurely”——

The youth bit his lip, made a haughty inclination of the head, and
walked leisurely up the wharf, followed with the same appearance of
deliberation, by the two seamen who had accompanied him in his visit to
the place. The stranger in green watched the whole movement with a calm
and apparently an amused eye, tapping his boot with his whip, and
seeming to reflect like one who would willingly find means to continue
the discourse.

“Hanged!” he at length uttered, as if to complete the sentence the
other had left unfinished. “It is droll enough that such a fellow
should dare to foretel so elevated a fate for _me_!”

He was evidently preparing to follow the retiring party, when he felt a
hand laid a little unceremoniously on his arm, and his step was
arrested.

“One word in your ear, sir,” said the attentive tailor, making a
significant sign that he had matters of importance to communicate: “A
single word, sir, since you are in the particular service of his
Majesty. Neighbour Pardon,” he continued, with a dignified and
patronising air, “the sun is getting low, and you will make it late
home, I fear. The girl will give you the garment, and—God speed you!
Say nothing of what you have heard and seen, until you have word from
me to that effect; for it is seemly that two men, who have had so much
experience in a war like this, should not lack in discretion. Fare ye
well, lad!—pass the good word to the worthy farmer, your father, not
forgetting a refreshing hint of friendship to the thrifty housewife,
your mother. Fare ye well, honest youth; fare ye well!”

Homespun, having thus disposed of his admiring companion, waited, with
much elevation of mien, until the gaping bumpkin had left the wharf,
before he again turned his look on the stranger in green. The latter
had continued standing in his tracks, with an air of undisturbed
composure, until he was once more addressed by the tailor, whose
character and dimensions he seemed to have taken in, at a single glance
of his rapid eye.

“You say, sir, you are a servant of his Majesty?” demanded the latter,
determined to solve all doubts as to the other’s claims on his
confidence, before he committed himself by any precipitate disclosure.

“I may say more;—his familiar confident!”

“It is an honour to converse with such a man, that I feel in every bone
in my body,” returned the cripple, smoothing his scanty hairs, and
bowing nearly to the earth; “a high and loyal honour do I feel this
gracious privilege to be.”

“Such as it is, my friend, I take on myself in his Majesty’s name, to
bid you welcome.”

“Such munificent condescension would open my whole heart, though
treason, and all other unrighteousness was locked up in it. I am happy,
honoured and I doubt not, honourable sir, to have this opportunity of
proving my zeal to the King, before one who will not fail to report my
humble efforts to his royal ears.”

“Speak freely,” interrupted the stranger in green, with an air of
princely condescension; though one, less simple and less occupied with
his own budding honours than the tailor, might have easily discovered
that he began to grow weary of the other’s prolix loyalty: “Speak
without reserve, friend; it is what we always do at court.” Then,
switching his boot with his riding whip, he muttered to himself, as he
swung his light frame on his heel, with an indolent, indifferent air,
“If the fellow swallows that, he is as stupid as his own goose!”

“I shall, sir, I shall; and a great proof of charity is it in one like
your noble self to listen. You see yonder tall ship, sir, in the outer
harbour of this loyal sea-port?”

“I do; she seems to be an object of general attention among the worthy
lieges of the place.”

“Therein I conceive, sir, you have over-rated the sagacity of my
townsmen. She has been lying where you now see her for many days, and
not a syllable have I heard whispered against her character from mortal
man, except myself.”

“Indeed!” muttered the stranger, biting the handle of his whip, and
fastening his glittering eyes intently on the features of the good-man,
which were literally swelling with the importance of his discovery;
“and what may be the nature of _your_ suspicions?”

“Why, sir, I maybe wrong—and God forgive me if I am—but this is no more
nor less than what has arisen in my mind on the subject. Yonder ship,
and her crew, bear the reputation of being innocent and harmless
slavers, among the good people of Newport and as such are they received
and welcomed in the place, the one to a safe and easy anchorage, and
the others among the taverners and shop-dealers. I would not have you
imagine that a single garment has ever gone from my fingers for one of
all her crew; no, let it be for ever remembered that the whole of their
dealings have been with the young tradesman named Tape, who entices
customers to barter, by backbiting and otherwise defiling the fair
names of his betters in the business: not a garment has been made by my
hands for even the smallest boy.”

“You are lucky,” returned the stranger in green, “in being so well quit
of the knaves! and yet have you forgotten to name the particular
offence with which I am to charge them before the face of the King.”

“I am coming as fast as possible to the weighty matter. You must know,
worthy and commendable sir, that I am a man that has seen much, and
suffered much, in his Majesty’s service. Five bloody and cruel wars
have I gone through, besides other adventures and experiences, such as
becomes a humble subject to suffer meekly and in silence.”

“All of which shall be directly communicated to the royal ear. And now,
worthy friend, relieve your mind, by a frank communication of your
suspicions.”

“Thanks, honourable sir; your goodness in my behalf cannot be
forgotten, though it shall never be said that any impatience to seek
the relief you mention hurried me into a light and improper manner of
unburthening my mind. You must know, honoured gentleman, that
yesterday, as I sat alone, at this very hour, on my board, reflecting
in my thoughts—for the plain reason that my envious neighbour had
enticed all the newly arrived customers to his own shop—well, sir, the
head will be busy when the hands are idle; there I sat, as I have
briefly told you, reflecting in my thoughts, like any other accountable
being, on the calamities of life, and on the great experiences that I
have had in the wars. For you must know, valiant gentleman, besides the
affair in the land of the Medes and Persians, and the Porteous mob in
Edinbro’, five cruel and bloody”——

“There is that in your air which sufficiently proclaims the soldier,”
interrupted his listener, who evidently struggled to keep down his
rising impatience; “but, as my time is so precious, I would now more
especially hear what you have to say concerning yonder ship.”

“Yes, sir, one gets a military look after seeing numberless wars; and
so, happily for the need of both, I have now come to the part of my
secret which touches more particularly on the character of that vessel.
There sat I, reflecting on the manner in which the strange seamen had
been deluded by my tonguey neighbour—for, as you should know, sir, a
desperate talker is that Tape, and a younker who has seen but one war
at the utmost—therefore, was I thinking of the manner in which he had
enticed my lawful customers from my shop, when, as one thought is the
father of another, the following concluding reasoning, as our pious
priest has it weekly in his reviving and searching discourses, came
uppermost in my mind: If these mariners were honest and conscientious
slavers, would they overlook a labouring man with a large family, to
pour their well-earned gold into the lap of a common babbler? I
proclaimed to myself at once, sir, that they would not. I was bold to
say the same in my own mind, and, thereupon, I openly put the question
to all in hearing, If they are not slavers, what are they? A question
which the King himself would, in his royal wisdom, allow to be a
question easier asked than answered; upon which I replied, If the
vessel be no fair-trading slaver, nor a common cruiser of his Majesty,
it is as tangible as the best man’s reasoning, that she may be neither
more nor less than the ship of that nefarious pirate the Red Rover.”

“The Red Rover!” exclaimed the stranger in green, with a start so
natural as to evidence that his dying interest in the tailor’s
narrative was suddenly and powerfully revived. “That indeed would be a
secret worth having!—but why do you suppose the same?”

“For sundry reasons, which I am now about to name, in their respective
order. In the first place, she is an armed ship, sir. In the second,
she is no lawful cruiser, or the same would be publicly known, and by
no one sooner than myself, inasmuch as it is seldom that I do not
finger a penny from the King’s ships. In the third place, the
burglarious and unfeeling conduct of the few seamen who have landed
from her go to prove it; and, lastly, what is well proved may be
considered as substantially established These are what, sir, I should
call the opening premises of my inferences, all of which I hope you
will properly lay before the royal mind of his Majesty.”

The barrister in green listened to the somewhat wire-drawn deductions
of Homespun with great attention notwithstanding the confused and
obscure manner in which they were delivered by the aspiring tradesman.
His keen eye rolled quickly, and often, from the vessel to the
countenance of his companion; but several moments elapsed before he saw
fit to make any reply. The reckless gayety with which he had introduced
himself, and which he had hitherto maintained in the discourse, was
entirely superseded by a musing and abstracted air, which sufficiently
proved, that, whatever levity he might betray in common, he was far
from being a stranger to deep and absorbing thought. Suddenly throwing
off his air of gravity, however, he assumed one in which irony and
sincerity were singularly blended and, laying his hand familiarly on
the shoulder of the expecting tailor, he replied—

“You have communicated such matter as becometh a faithful and loyal
servant of the King. It is well known that a heavy price is set on the
head of the meanest follower of the Rover, and that a rich, ay, a
splendid reward will be the fortune of him who is the instrument of
delivering the whole knot of miscreants into the hands of the
executioner. Indeed I know not but some marked evidence of the royal
pleasure might follow such a service. There was Phipps, a man of humble
origin, who received knighthood—”

“Knighthood!” echoed the tailor, in awful admiration.

“Knighthood,” coolly repeated the stranger; “honourable and chivalric
knighthood. What may have been the appellation you received from your
sponsors in baptism?”

“My given name, gracious and grateful sir, is Hector.”

“And the house itself?—the distinctive appellation of the family?”

“We have _always_ been called Homespun.”

“Sir Hector Homespun will sound as well as another! But to secure these
rewards, my friend, it is necessary to be discreet. I admire your
ingenuity, and am a convert to your logic. You have so entirely
demonstrated the truth of your suspicions, that I have no more doubt of
yonder vessel being the pirate, than I have of your wearing spurs, and
being called sir Hector. The two things are equally established in my
mind: but it is needful that we proceed in the matter with caution. I
understand you to say, that no one else has been enlightened by your
erudition in this affair?”

“Not a soul. Tape himself is ready to swear that the crew are
conscientious slavers.”

“So best. We must first render conclusions certain; then to our reward.
Meet me at the hour of eleven this night, at yonder low point, where
the land juts into the outer harbour. From that stand will we make our
observations; and, having removed every doubt, let the morning produce
a discovery that shall ring from the Colony of the Bay to the
settlements of Oglethorpe. Until then we part; for it is not wise that
we be longer seen in conference. Remember silence, punctuality, and the
favour of the King. These are our watch-words.”

“Adieu, honourable gentlemen,” said his companion making a reverence
nearly to the earth, as the other slightly touched his hat in passing.

“Adieu, sir Hector,” returned the stranger in green, with an affable
smile and a gracious wave of the hand. He then walked slowly up the
wharf, and disappeared behind the mansion of the Homespuns; leaving the
head of that ancient family, like many a predecessor and many a
successor, so rapt in the admiration of his own good fortune, and so
blinded by his folly, that, while physically he saw to the right and to
the left as well as ever, his mental vision was completely obscured in
the clouds of ambition.




Chapter III.

Alonzo. “Good boatswain, have care.”

_Tempest._


The instant the stranger had separated from the credulous tailor, he
lost his assumed air in one far more natural and sedate. Still it would
seem that thought was an unwonted, or an unwelcome tenant of his mind;
for, switching his boot with his little riding whip, he entered the
principal street of the place with a light step and a wandering eye.
Though his look was unsettled, few of the individuals, whom he passed,
escaped his quick glances; and it was quite apparent, from the hurried
manner in which he began to regard objects, that his mind was not less
active than his body. A stranger thus accoutred, and one bearing about
his person so many evidences of his recent acquaintance with the road,
did not fail to attract the attention of the provident publicans we
have had occasion to mention in our opening chapter. Declining the
civilities of the most favoured of the inn-keepers, he suffered his
steps to be, oddly enough, arrested by the one whose house was the
usual haunt of the hangers-on of the port.

On entering the bar-room of this tavern, as it was called, but which in
the mother country would probably have aspired to be termed no more
than a pot-house he found the hospitable apartment thronged with its
customary revellers. A slight interruption was produced by the
appearance of a guest who was altogether superior, in mien and attire,
to the ordinary customers of the house, but it ceased the moment the
stranger had thrown himself on a bench, and intimated to the host the
nature of his wants. As the latter furnished the required draught, he
made a sort of apology, which was intended for the ears of all his
customers nigh the stranger, for the manner in which an individual, in
the further end of the long narrow room, not only monopolized the
discourse, but appeared to extort the attention of all within hearing
to some portentous legend he was recounting.

“It is the boatswain of the slaver in the outer harbour, squire,” the
worthy disciple of Bacchus concluded; “a man who has followed the water
many a day, and who has seen sights and prodigies enough to fill a
smart volume. Old Bor’us the people call him, though his lawful name is
Jack Nightingale. Is the toddy to the squire’s relish?”

The stranger assented to the latter query, by smacking his lips, and
bowing, as he put down the nearly untouched draught. He then turned his
head, to examine the individual who might, by the manner in which he
declaimed, have been termed, in the language of the country, the second
“orator of the day.”

A stature which greatly exceeded six feet; enormous whiskers, that
quite concealed a moiety of his grim countenance; a scar, which was the
memorial of a badly healed gash, that had once threatened to divide
that moiety in quarters; limbs in proportion; the whole rendered
striking by the dress of a sea man; a long, tarnished silver chain, and
a little whistle of the same metal, served to render the individual in
question sufficiently remarkable. Without appearing to be in the
smallest decree aware of the entrance of one altogether so superior to
the class of his usual auditors, this son of the Ocean continued his
narrative as follows, and in a voice that seemed given to him by nature
as if in very mockery of his musical name; indeed, so very near did his
tones approach to the low murmurings of a bull, that some little
practice was necessary to accustom the ear to the strangely uttered
words.

“Well!” he continued, thrusting his brawny arm forth, with the fist
clenched, indicating the necessary point of the compass by the thumb;
“the coast of Guinea might have lain hereaway, and the wind you see,
was dead off shore, blowing in squalls, as a cat spits, all the same as
if the old fellow, who keeps it bagged for the use of us seamen,
sometimes let the stopper slip through his fingers, and was sometimes
fetching it up again with a double turn round the end of his sack.—You
know what a sack is, brother?”

This abrupt question was put to the gaping bumpkin, already known to
the reader, who, with the nether garment just received from the tailor
under his arm, had lingered, to add the incidents of the present legend
to the stock of lore that he had already obtained for the ears of his
kinsfolk in the country. A general laugh, at the expense of the
admiring Pardon succeeded. Nightingale bestowed a knowing wink on one
or two of his familiars, and, profiting by the occasion, “to freshen
his nip,” as he quaintly styled swallowing a pint of rum and water, he
continued his narrative by saying, in a sort of admonitory tone,—

“And the time may come when you will know what a round-turn is, too, if
you let go your hold of honesty. A man’s neck was made, brother, to
keep his head above water, and not to be stretched out of shape like a
pair of badly fitted dead-eyes. Therefore have your reckoning worked up
in season, and the lead of conscience going, when you find yourself
drifting on the shoals of temptation.” Then, rolling his tobacco in his
mouth, he looked boldly about him, like one who had acquitted himself
of a moral obligation, and continued: “Well, there lay the land, and,
as I was saying, the wind was here, at east-and-by-south or mayhap at
east-and-by-south-half-south, sometimes blowing like a fin-back in a
hurry, and sometimes leaving all the canvas chafing ag’in the rigging
and spars, as if a bolt of duck cost no more nor a rich man’s blessing.
I didn’t like the looks of the weather, seeing that there was
altogether too much unsartainty for a quiet watch, so I walked aft, in
order to put myself in the way of giving an opinion if-so-be such a
thing should be asked. You must know, brothers, that, according to my
notions of religion and behaviour, a man is not good for much, unless
he has a full share of manners; therefore I am never known to put my
spoon into the captain’s mess, unless I am invited, for the plain
reason, that my berth is for’ard, and his’n aft. I do not say in which
end of a ship the better man is to be found; that is a matter
concerning which men have different opinions, though most judges in the
business are agreed. But aft I walked, to put myself in the way of
giving an opinion, if one should be asked; nor was it long before the
thing came to pass just as I had foreseen. ‘Mister Nightingale,’ says
he; for our Captain is a gentleman, and never forgets his behaviour on
deck, or when any of the ship’s company are at hand, ‘_Mister_
Nightingale,’ says he, ‘what do you think of that rag of a cloud,
hereaway at the north-west?’ says he. ‘Why, sir,’ says I, boldly, for
I’m never backward in speaking, when properly spoken to, so, ‘why,
sir,’ says I, ‘saving your Honour’s better judgment,’—which was all a
flam, for he was but a chicken to me in years and experience, but then
I never throw hot ashes to windward, or any thing else that is warm—so,
‘sir,’ says I, ‘it is my advice to hand the three topsails and to stow
the jib. We are in no hurry; for the plain reason, that Guinea will be
to-morrow just where Guinea is to-night. As for keeping the ship steady
in these matters of squalls, we have the mainsail on her—’”

“You should have furl’d your mainsail too,” exclaimed a voice from
behind, that was quite as dogmatical, though a little less grum, than
that of the loquacious boatswain.

“What know-nothing says that?” demanded Nightingale fiercely, as if all
his latent ire was excited by so rude and daring an interruption.

“A man who has run Africa down, from Bon to Good-Hope, more than once,
and who knows a white squall from a rainbow,” returned Dick Fid, edging
his short person stoutly towards his furious adversary, making his way
through the crowd by which the important personage of the boatswain was
environed by dint of his massive shoulders; “ay, brother, and a man,
know-much or know-nothing, who would never advise his officer to keep
so much after-sail on a ship, when there was the likelihood of the wind
taking her aback.”

To this bold vindication of an opinion which all present deemed to be
so audacious, there succeeded a general and loud murmur. Encouraged by
this evidence of his superior popularity, Nightingale was not slow, nor
very meek, with his retort; and then followed a clamorous concert, in
which the voices of the company in general served for the higher and
shriller notes, through which the bold and vigorous assertions,
contradictions, and opinions of the two principal disputants were heard
running a thorough-bass.

For some time, no part of the discussion was very distinct, so great
was the confusion of tongues; and there were certain symptoms of an
intention, on the part of Fid and the boatswain, to settle their
controversy by the last appeal. During this moment of suspense, the
former had squared his firm-built frame in front of his gigantic
opponent, and there were very vehement passings and counter-passings,
in the way of gestures from four athletic arms, each of which was
knobbed, like a fashionable rattan, with a lump of bones, knuckles, and
sinews, that threatened annihilation to any thing that should oppose
them. As the general clamour, however, gradually abated, the chief
reasoners began to be heard; and, as if content to rely on their
respective powers of eloquence, each gradually relinquished his hostile
attitude, and appeared disposed to maintain his ground by a member
scarcely less terrible than his brawny arm.

“You are a bold seaman, brother,” said Nightingale resuming his seat,
“and, if saying was doing, no doubt you would make a ship talk. But I,
who have seen fleets of two and three deckers—and that of all nations,
except your Mohawks, mayhap, whose cruisers I will confess never to
have fallen in with—lying as snug as so many white gulls, under reefed
mainsails, know how to take the strain off a ship, and to keep my
bulkheads in their places.”

“I deny the judgment of heaving-to a boat under her after
square-sails,” retorted Dick. “Give her the stay-sails, if you will,
and no harm done; but a true seaman will never get a bagful of wind
between his mainmast and his lee-swifter, if-so-be he knows his
business. But words are like thunder, which rumbles aloft, without
coming down a spar, as I have yet seen; let us therefore put the
question to some one who has been on the water, and knows a little of
life and of ships.”

“If the oldest admiral in his Majesty’s fleet was here, he wouldn’t be
backward in saying who is right and who is wrong. I say, brothers, if
there is a man among you all who has had the advantage of a sea
education, let him speak, in order that the truth of this matter may
not be hid, like a marling-spike jammed between a brace-block and a
blackened yard.”

“Here, then, is the man,” returned Fid; and, stretching out his arm, he
seized Scipio by the collar, and drew him, without ceremony, into the
centre of the circle, that had opened around the two disputants “There
is a man for you, who has made one more voyage between this and Africa
than myself, for the reason that he was born there. Now, answer as if
you were hallooing from a lee-earing, S’ip, under what sail would you
heave-to a ship, on the coast of your native country, with the danger
of a white squall at hand?”

“I no heave-’em-to,” said the black, “I make ’em scud.”

“Ay, boy; but, to be in readiness for the puff, would you jam her up
under a mainsail, or let her lie a little off under a fore course?”

“Any fool know dat,” returned Scipio, grumly and evidently tired
already of being thus catechised.

“If you want ’em fall off, how you’m expect, in reason, he do it under
a main course? You answer me dat, misser Dick.”

“Gentlemen,” said Nightingale, looking about him with an air of great
gravity, “I put it to your Honours, is it genteel behaviour to bring a
nigger, in this out-of-the-way fashion, to give an opinion in the teeth
of a white man?”

This appeal to the wounded dignity of the company was answered by a
common murmur. Scipio, who was prepared to maintain, and would have
maintained, his professional opinion, after his positive and peculiar
manner, against any disputant, had not the heart to resist so general
an evidence of the impropriety of his presence. Without uttering a word
in vindication or apology, he folded his arms, and walked out of the
house, with the submission and meekness of one who had been too long
trained in humility to rebel. This desertion on the part of his
companion was not, however, so quietly acquiesced in by Fid, who found
himself thus unexpectedly deprived of the testimony of the black. He
loudly remonstrated against his retreat; but, finding it in vain, he
crammed the end of several inches of tobacco into his mouth, swearing,
as he followed the African, and keeping his eye, at the same time,
firmly fastened on his adversary, that, in his opinion, “the lad, if he
was fairly skinned, would be found to be the whiter man of the two.”

The triumph of the boatswain was now complete; nor was he at all
sparing of his exultation.

“Gentlemen,” he said, addressing himself, with an air of increased
confidence, to the motley audience who surrounded him, “you see that
reason is like a ship bearing down with studding-sails on both sides,
leaving a straight wake and no favours. Now, I scorn boasting, nor do I
know who the fellow is who has just sheered off, in time to save his
character, but this I will say, that the man is not to be found,
between Boston and the West Indies, who knows better than myself how to
make a ship walk, or how to make her stand still, provided I”—

The deep voice of Nightingale became suddenly hushed, and his eye was
riveted, by a sort of enchantment on the keen glance of the stranger in
green, whose countenance was now seen blended among the more vulgar
faces of the crowd.

“Mayhap,” continued the boatswain, swallowing his words, in the
surprise of seeing himself so unexpectedly confronted by so imposing an
eye, “mayhap this gentleman has some knowledge of the sea, and can
decide the matter in dispute.”

“We do not study naval tactics at the universities,” returned the other
briskly, “though I will confess, from the little I have heard, I am
altogether in favour of _scudding._”

He pronounced the latter word with an emphasis which rendered it
questionable if he did not mean to pun; the more especially as he threw
down his reckoning and instantly left the field to the quiet possession
of Nightingale. The latter, after a short pause, resumed his narrative,
though, either from weariness or some other cause, it was observed that
his voice was far less positive than before, and that his tale was cut
prematurely short. After completing his narrative and his grog, he
staggered to the beach, whither a boat was shortly after despatched to
convey him on board the ship, which, during all this time, had not
ceased to be the constant subject of the suspicious examination of the
good-man Homespun.

In the mean while, the stranger in green had pursued his walk along the
main street of the town. Fid had given chase to the disconcerted
Scipio, grumbling as he went, and uttering no very delicate remarks on
the knowledge and seamanship of the boatswain. They soon joined company
again, the former changing his attack to the negro, whom he liberally
abused, for abandoning a point which he maintained was as simple, and
as true, as “that yonder bit of a schooner would make more way, going
wing-and-wing, than jammed up on a wind.”

Probably diverted with the touches of peculiar character he had
detected in this singular pair of confederates, or possibly led by his
own wayward humour, the stranger followed their footsteps. After
turning from the water, they mounted a hill, the latter a little in the
rear of his pilots, until he lost sight of them in a bend of the
street, or rather road; for by this time, they were past even the
little suburbs of the town. Quickening his steps, the barrister, as he
had announced himself to be, was glad to catch a glimpse of the two
worthies, seated under a fence several minutes after he had believed
them lost. They were making a frugal meal, off the contents of a little
bag which the white had borne under his arm and from which he now
dispensed liberally to his companion, who had taken his post
sufficiently nigh to proclaim that perfect amity was restored, though
still a little in the back ground, in deference to the superior
condition which the other enjoyed through favour of his colour.
Approaching the spot, the stranger observed,—

“If you make so free with the bag, my lads, your third man may have to
go supperless to bed.”

“Who hails?” said Dick, looking up from his bone, with an expression
much like that of a mastiff when engaged at a similar employment.

“I merely wished to remind you that you had another messmate,”
cavalierly returned the other.

“Will you take a cut, brother?” said the seaman, offering the bag, with
the liberality of a sailor, the moment he fancied there was an indirect
demand made on its contents.

“You still mistake my meaning; on the wharf you had another companion.”

“Ay, ay; he is in the offing there, overhauling that bit of a
light-house, which is badly enough moored unless they mean it to shew
the channel to your ox-teams and inland traders; hereaway, gentlemen,
where you see that pile of stones which seems likely to be coming down
shortly by-the-run.”

The stranger looked in the direction indicated by the other, and saw
the young mariner, to whom he had alluded, standing at the foot of a
ruined tower, which was crumbling under the slow operations of time, at
no great distance from the place where he stood. Throwing a handful of
small change to the seamen, he wished them a better meal, and crossed
the fence, with an apparent intention of examining the ruin also.

“The lad is free with his coppers,” said Dick, suspending the movements
of his teeth, to give the stranger another and a better look; “but, as
they will not grow where he has planted them, S’ip, you may turn them
over to my pocket. An off-handed and a free-handed chap that, Africa;
but then these law-dealers get all their pence of the devil, and they
are sure of more, when the shot begins to run low in the locker.”

Leaving the negro to collect the money, and to transfer it, as in duty
bound, to the hands of him who, if not his master, was at all times
ready and willing to exercise the authority of one, we shall follow the
stranger in his walk toward, the tottering edifice. There was little
about the ruin itself to attract the attention of one who, from his
assertions, had probably often enjoyed the opportunities of examining
far more imposing remains of former ages, on the other side of the
Atlantic. It was a small circular tower, which stood on rude pillars,
connected by arches, and might have been constructed, in the infancy of
the country, as a place of defence, though it is far more probable that
it was a work of a less warlike nature. More than half a century after
the period of which we are writing, this little edifice, peculiar in
its form, its ruinous condition, and its materials, has suddenly become
the study and the theme of that very learned sort of individual the
American antiquarian. It is not surprising that a ruin thus honoured
should have become the object of many a hot and erudite discussion.
While the chivalrous in the arts and in the antiquities of the country
have been gallantly breaking their lances around the mouldering walls,
the less instructed and the less zealous have regarded the combatants
with the same species of wonder as they would have manifested had they
been present when the renowned knight of La Mancha tilted against those
other wind-mills so ingeniously described by the immortal Cervantes.

On reaching the place, the stranger in green gave his boot a smart blow
with the riding whip, as if to attract the attention of the abstracted
young sailor, and freely remarked,—

“A very pretty object this would be, if covered with ivy, to be seen
peeping through an opening in a wood. But I beg pardon; gentlemen of
your _profession_ have little to do with woods and crumbling stones.
Yonder is the tower,” pointing to the tail masts of the ship in the
outer harbour, “you love to look on; and your only ruin is a wreck!”

“You seem familiar with our tastes, sir,” coldly returned the other.

“It is by instinct, then; for it is certain I have had but little
opportunity of acquiring my knowledge by actual communion with any of
the—cloth; nor do I perceive that I am likely to be more fortunate at
present. Let us be frank, my friend, and talk in amity: What do you see
about this pile of stones, that can keep you so long from your study of
yonder noble and gallant ship?”

“Did it then surprise you that a seaman out of employment should
examine a vessel that he finds to his mind, perhaps with an intention
to ask for service?”

“Her commander must be a dull fellow, if he refuse it to so proper a
lad! But you seem to be too well instructed for any of the meaner
births.”

“Births!” repeated the other, again fastening his eyes, with a singular
expression, on the stranger in green.

“Births! It is your nautical word for ‘situation, or; station;’ is it
not? We know but little of the marine vocabulary, we barristers; but I
think I may venture on that as the true Doric. Am I justified by your
authority?”

“The word is certainly not yet obsolete; and, by a figure, it is as
certainly correct in the sense you used it.”

“Obsolete!” repeated the stranger in green, returning the meaning look
he had just received: “Is that the name of any part of a ship? Perhaps,
by _figure_, you mean figure-head; and, by _obsolete_, the long-boat!”

The young seaman laughed; and, as if this sally had broken through the
barrier of his reserve, his manner lost much of its cold restraint
during the remainder of their conference.

“It is just as plain,” he said, “that you have been at sea, as it is
that I have been at school. Since we have both been so fortunate, we
may afford to be generous and cease speaking in parables. For instance,
what think you has been the object and use of this ruin, when it was in
good condition?”

“In order to judge of that,” returned the stranger in green, “it may be
necessary to examine it more closely. Let us ascend.”

As he spoke, the barrister mounted, by a crazy ladder, to the floor
which lay just above the crown of the arches, through which he passed
by an open trapdoor His companion hesitated to follow; but, observing
that the other expected him at the summit of the ladder, and that he
very kindly pointed out a defective round, he sprang forward, and went
up the ascent with the agility and steadiness peculiar to his calling.

“Here we are!” exclaimed the stranger in green, looking about at the
naked walls, which were formed of such small and irregular stones as to
give the building the appearance of dangerous frailty, “with good oaken
plank for our deck, as you would say, and the sky for our roof, as we
call the upper part of a house at the universities. Now let us speak of
things on the lower world. A—a—; I forget what you said was your usual
appellation—”

“That might depend on circumstances. I have been known by different
names in different situations However, if you call me Wilder, I shall
not fail to answer.”

“Wilder!” a good name; though, I dare say, it would have been as true
were it Wildone. You young ship-boys have the character of being a
little erratic in your humours at times. How many tender hearts have
you left to sigh for your errors, amid shady bowers, while you have
been ploughing—that is the word, I believe—ploughing the salt-sea
ocean?”

“Few sigh for me,” returned Wilder, thoughtfully, though he evidently
began to chafe a little under this free sort of catechism. “Let us now
return to our study of the tower. What think you has been its object?”

“Its present use is plain, and its former use can be no great mystery.
It holds at this moment two light hearts; and, if I am not mistaken, as
many light heads, not overstocked with the stores of wisdom. Formerly
it had its granaries of corn, at least, and, I doubt not, certain
little quadrupeds, who were quite as light of fingers as we are of head
and heart. In plain English, it has been a mill”

“There are those who think it had been a fortress.”

“Hum! The place might do, at need,” returned he in green, casting a
rapid and peculiar glance around him. “But mill it has been,
notwithstanding one might wish it a nobler origin. The windy situation
the pillars to keep off the invading vermin, the shape, the air, the
very complexion, prove it. Whir-r-r, whir-r-r; there has been clatter
enough here in time past, I warrant you. Hist! It is not done yet!”

Stepping lightly to one of the little perforations which had once
served as windows to the tower, he cautiously thrust his head through
the opening; and, after gazing there half a minute, he withdrew it
again, making a gesture to the attentive Wilder to be silent. The
latter complied; nor was it long before the nature of the interruption
was sufficiently explained.

The silvery voice of woman was first heard at a little distance; and
then, as the speakers drew nigher the sounds arose directly from
beneath, within the very shadow of the tower. By a sort of tacit
consent, Wilder and the barrister chose spots favourable to the
execution of such a purpose; and each continued, during the time the
visiters remained near the ruin, examining their persons, unseen
themselves, and we are sorry we must do so much violence to the
breeding of two such important characters in our legend, amused and
attentive listeners also to their conversation.




Chapter IV.

“They fool me to the top of my bent.”

_Hamlet._


The party below consisted of four individuals all of whom were females.
One was a lady in the decline of her years; another was past the middle
age the third was on the very threshold of what is called “life,” as it
is applied to intercourse with the world; and the fourth was a negress,
who might have seen some five-and-twenty revolutions of the seasons.
The latter, at that time, and in that country, of course appeared only
in the character of a humble, though perhaps favoured domestic.

“And now, my child, that I have given you all the advice which
circumstances and your own excellent heart need,” said the elderly
lady, among the first words that were distinctly intelligible to the
listeners, “I will change the ungracious office to one more agreeable.
You will tell your father of my continued affection, and of the promise
he has given, that you are to return once again, before we separate for
the last time.”

This speech was addressed to the younger female, and was apparently
received with as much tenderness and sincerity as it was uttered. The
one who was addressed raised her eyes, which were glittering with tears
she evidently struggled to conceal, and answered in a voice that
sounded in the ears of the two youthful listeners like the notes of the
Syren, so very sweet and musical were its tones.

“It is useless to remind me of a promise, my beloved aunt, which I have
so much interest in remembering,” she said. “I hope for even more than
you have perhaps dared to wish; if my father does not return with me in
the spring, it shall not be for want of urging on my part.”

“Our good Wyllys will lend her aid,” returned the aunt, smiling and
bowing to the third female, with that mixture of suavity and form which
was peculiar to the stately manners of the time, and which was rarely
neglected, when a superior addressed an inferior. “She is entitled to
command some interest with General Grayson, from her fidelity and
services.”

“She is entitled to everything that love and heart can give!” exclaimed
the niece, with a haste and earnestness that proclaimed how willingly
she would temper the formal politeness of the other by the warmth of
her own affectionate manner; “my father will scarcely refuse _her_ any
thing.”

“And have we the assurance of Miss Wyllys that she will be in our
interests?” demanded the aunt, without permitting her own sense of
propriety to be overcome by the stronger feelings of her niece; “with
so powerful an ally, our league will be invincible.”

“I am so entirely of opinion, that the salubrious air of this healthful
island is of great importance to my young charge, Madam, that, were all
other considerations wanting, the little I can do to aid your wishes
shall be sure to be done.”

Wyllys spoke with dignity, and perhaps with some portion of that
reserve which distinguished all the communications between the wealthy
and high-born aunt and the salaried and dependent governess of her
brother’s heiress. Still her manner was gentle, and the voice, like
that of her pupil, soft and strikingly feminine.

“We may then consider the victory as achieved, as my late husband the
Rear-Admiral was accustomed to say. Admiral de Lacey, my dear Mrs
Wyllys, adopted it in early life as a maxim, by which all his future
conduct was governed, and by adhering to which he acquired no small
share of his professional reputation, that, in order to be successful,
it was only necessary to be determined one would be so;—a noble and
inspiriting rule, and one that could not fail to lead to those signal
results which, as we all know them, I need not mention.”

Wyllys bowed her head, in acknowledgment of the truth of the opinion,
and in testimony of the renown of the deceased Admiral; but did not
think it necessary to make any reply. Instead of allowing the subject
to occupy her mind any longer, she turned to her young pupil, and
observed, speaking in a voice and with a manner from which every
appearance of restraint was banished,—

“Gertrude, my love, you will have pleasure in returning to this
charming island, and to these cheering sea breezes.”

“And to my aunt!” exclaimed Gertrude. “I wish my father could be
persuaded to dispose of his estates in Carolina, and come northward, to
reside the whole year.”

“It is not quite as easy for an affluent proprietor to remove as you
may imagine, my child,” returned Mrs de Lacey. “Much as I wish that
some such plan could be adopted, I never press my brother on the
subject. Besides, I am not certain, that, if we were ever to make
another change in the family, it would not be to return _home_
altogether. It is now more than a century, Mrs Wyllys, since the
Graysons came into the colonies, in a moment of dissatisfaction with
the government in England. My great-grandfather sir Everard, was
displeased with his second son, and the dissension led my grandfather
to the province of Carolina. But, as the breach has long since been
healed, I often think my brother and myself may yet return to the halls
of our ancestors. Much will, however, depend on the manner in which we
dispose of our treasure on this side of the Atlantic.”

As the really well-meaning, though, perhaps, a little too much
self-satisfied lady concluded her remark, she glanced her eye at the
perfectly unconscious subject of the close of her speech. Gertrude had,
as usual, when her aunt chose to favour her governess with any of her
family reminiscences, turned her head aside, and was now offering her
cheek, burning with health, and perhaps a little with shame, to the
cooling influence of the evening breeze. The instant the voice of Mrs
de Lacey had ceased, she turned hastily to her companions; and,
pointing to a noble-looking ship, whose masts, as it lay in the inner
harbour, were seen rising above the roofs of the town, she exclaimed,
as if glad to change the subject in any manner,—

“And yonder gloomy prison is to be our home, dear Mrs Wyllys, for the
next month!”

“I hope your dislike to the sea has magnified the time,” mildly
returned her governess; “the passage between this place and Carolina
has been often made in a shorter period.”

“That it has been so done, I can testify,” resumed the Admiral’s widow,
adhering a little pertinaciously to a train of thoughts, which, once
thoroughly awakened in her bosom, was not easily diverted into another
channel, “since my late estimable and (I feel certain all who hear me
will acquiesce when I add) gallant husband once conducted a squadron of
his Royal Master, from one extremity of his Majesty’s American
dominions to the other, in a time less than that named by my niece: It
may have made some difference in his speed that he was in pursuit of
the enemies of his King and country, but still the fact proves that the
voyage can be made within the month.”

“There is that dreadful Henlopen, with its sandy shoals and shipwrecks
on one hand, and that stream they call the Gulf on the other!”
exclaimed Gertrude, with a shudder, and a burst of natural female
terror, which makes timidity sometimes attractive, when exhibited in
the person of youth and beauty. “If it were not for Henlopen, and its
gales, and its shoals, and its gulfs, I could think only of the
pleasure of meeting my father.”

Mrs Wyllys, who never encouraged her pupil in those, natural
weaknesses, however pretty and be coming they might appear to other
eyes, turned with a steady mien to the young lady, as she remarked,
with a brevity and decision that were intended to put the question of
fear at rest for ever,—

“If all the dangers you appear to apprehend existed in reality, the
passage would not be made daily or even hourly, in safety. You have
often, Madam, come from the Carolinas by sea, in company with Admiral
de Lacey?”

“Never,” the widow promptly and a little drily remarked. “The water has
not agreed with my constitution, and I have never neglected to journey
by land. But then you know, Wyllys, as the consort and relict of a
flag-officer, it was not seemly that I should be ignorant of naval
science. I believe there are few ladies in the British empire who are
more familiar with ships, either singly or in squadron particularly the
latter, than myself. This in formation I have naturally acquired, as
the companion of an officer, whose fortune it was to lead fleets. I
presume these are matters of which you are profoundly ignorant.”

The calm, dignified countenance of Wyllys, on which it would seem as if
long cherished and painful recollections had left a settled, but mild
expression of sorrow, that rather tempered than destroyed the traces of
character which were still remarkable in her firm collected eye, became
clouded, for a moment, with a deeper shade of melancholy. After
hesitating, as if willing to change the subject, she replied,—

“I have not been altogether a stranger to the sea. It has been my lot
to have made many long, and some perilous voyages.”

“As a mere passenger. But we wives of sailors only, among our sex, can
lay claim to any real knowledge of the noble profession! What natural
object is there, or can there be,” exclaimed the nautical dowager, in a
burst of professional enthusiasm, “finer than a stately ship breasting
the billows, as I have heard the Admiral say a thousand times, its
taffrail ploughing the main, and its cut-water gliding after, like a
sinuous serpent pursuing its shining wake, as a living creature
choosing its path on the land, and leaving the bone under its
fore-foot, a beacon for those that follow? I know not, my dear Wyllys,
if I make myself intelligible to you, but, to my instructed eye, this
charming description conveys a picture of all that is grand and
beautiful!”

The latent smile, on the countenance of the governess might have
betrayed that she was imagining the deceased Admiral had not been
altogether devoid of the waggery of his vocation, had not a slight
noise, which sounded like the rustling of the wind, but which in truth
was suppressed laughter, proceeded from the upper room of the tower.
The words, “It is lovely!” were still on the lips of the youthful
Gertrude, who saw all the beauty of the picture her aunt had essayed to
describe, without descending to the humble employment of verbal
criticism. But her voice became hushed, and her attitude that of
startled attention:—

“Did you hear nothing?” she said.

“The rats have not yet altogether deserted the mill,” was the calm
reply of Wyllys.

“Mill! my dear Mrs Wyllys, will you persist in calling this picturesque
ruin _a mill_?”

“However fatal it may be to its charms, in the eyes of eighteen, I must
call it _a mill_.”

“Ruins are not so plenty in this country, my dear governess,” returned
her pupil, laughing, while the ardour of her eye denoted how serious
she was in defending her favourite opinion, “as to justify us in
robbing them of any little claims to interest they may happen to
possess.”

“Then, happier is the country! Ruins in a land are, like most of the
signs of decay in the human form, sad evidences of abuses and passions,
which have hastened the inroads of time. These provinces are like
yourself, my Gertrude, in their freshness and their youth, and,
comparatively, in their innocence also. Let us hope for both a long, an
useful, and a happy existence.”

“Thank you for myself, and for my country; but still I can never admit
this picturesque ruin has been _a mill_.”

“Whatever it may have been, it has long occupied its present place, and
has the appearance of continuing where it is much longer, which is more
than can be said of our prison, as you call yonder stately ship, in
which we are so soon to embark. Unless my eyes deceive me, Madam, those
masts are moving slowly past the chimnies of the town.”

“You are very right, Wyllys. The seamen are towing the vessel into the
outer harbour, where they will warp her fast to the anchors, and thus
secure her, until they shall be ready to unmake their sails, in order
to put to sea in the morning. This is a manoeuvre often performed, and
one which the Admiral has so clearly explained, that I should find
little difficulty in superintending it in my own person, were it
suitable to my sex and station.”

“This is, then, a hint that all our own preparations are not completed.
However lovely this spot may seem, Gertrude, we must now leave it, for
some months at least.”

“Yes,” continued Mrs de Lacey, slowly following the footsteps of the
governess, who had already moved from beneath the ruin; “whole fleets
have often been towed to their anchors, and there warped, waiting for
wind and tide to serve. None of our sex know the dangers of the Ocean,
but we who have been bound in the closest of all ties to officers of
rank and great service; and none others can ever truly enjoy the real
grandeur of the ennobling profession. A charming object is a vessel
cutting the waves with her taffrail, and chasing her wake on the
trackless waters, like a courser that ever keeps in his path, though
dashing madly on at the very top of his speed!—”

The reply of Mrs Wyllys was not audible to the covert listeners.
Gertrude had followed her companions; but, when at some little distance
from the tower, she paused, to take a parting look at its mouldering
walls. A profound stillness succeeded for more than a minute.

“There is something in that pile of stones, Cassandra,” she said to the
jet-black maiden at her elbow, “that could make me wish it had been
something more than a mill.”

“There rat in ’em,” returned the literal and simple-minded black; “you
hear what Misse Wyllys say?”

Gertrude turned, laughed, patted the dark cheek of her attendant with
fingers that looked like snow by the contrast, as if to chide her for
wishing to destroy the pleasing illusion she would so gladly harbour
and then bounded down the hill after her aunt and governess, like a
joyous and youthful Atalanta.

The two singularly consorted listeners in the tower stood gazing, at
their respective look-outs, so long as the smallest glimpse of the
flowing robe of her light form was to be seen and then they turned to
each other, and stood confronted, the eyes of each endeavouring to read
the expression of his neighbour’s countenance.

“I am ready to make an affidavit before my Lord High Chancellor,”
suddenly exclaimed the barrister, “that this has never been a mill!”

“Your opinion has undergone a sudden change!”

“I am open to conviction, as I hope to be a judge. The case has been
argued by a powerful advocate, and I have lived to see my error.”

“And yet there are rats in the place.”

“Land rats, or water rats?” quickly demanded the other, giving his
companion one of those startling and searching glances, which his keen
eye had so freely at command.

“Both, I believe,” was the dry and caustic reply; “certainly the
former, or the gentlemen of the long robe are much injured by report.”

The barrister laughed; nor did his temper appear in the slightest
degree ruffled at so free an allusion at his learned and honourable
profession.

“You gentlemen of the Ocean have such an honest and amusing frankness
about you,” he said, “that I vow to God you are overwhelming. I am a
downright admirer of your noble calling, and something skilled in its
terms. What spectacle, for instance, can be finer than a noble ship
‘stemming the waves with her taffrail,’ and chasing her wake, like a
racer on the course!”

“Leaving the ‘bone in her mouth’ under her stern, as a light-house for
all that come after!”

Then, as if they found singular satisfaction in dwelling on these
images of the worthy relict of the gallant Admiral, they broke out
simultaneously into a fit of clamorous merriment, that caused the old
ruin to ring, as in its best days of windy power. The barrister was the
first to regain his self-command, for the mirth of the young mariner
was joyous, and without the least restraint.

“But this is dangerous ground for any but a seaman’s widow to touch,”
the former observed, as suddenly causing his laughter to cease as he
had admitted of its indulgence. “The younger, she who is no lover of a
mill, is a rare and lovely creature! it would seem that she is the
niece of the nautical critic.”

The young manner ceased laughing in his turn, as though he were
suddenly convinced of the glaring impropriety of making so near a
relative of the fair vision he had seen the subject of his merriment.
Whatever might have been his secret thoughts, he was content with
replying,—

“She so declared herself.”

“Tell me,” said the barrister, walking close to the other, like one who
communicated an important secret in the question, “was there not
something remarkable searching, extraordinary, heart-touching, in the
voice of her they called Wyllys?”

“Did you note it?”

“It sounded to me like the tones of an oracle—the whisperings of
fancy—the very words of truth! It was a strange and persuasive voice!”

“I confess I felt its influence, and in a way for which I cannot
account!”

“It amounts to infatuation!” returned the barrister pacing up and down
the little apartment, every trace of humour and irony having
disappeared in a look of settled and abstracted care. His companion
appeared little disposed to interrupt his meditations, but stood
leaning against the naked walls, himself the subject of deep and
sorrowful reflection. At length the former shook off his air of
thought, with that startling quickness which seemed common to his
manner; he approached a window, and, directing the attention of Wilder
to the ship in the outer harbour, abruptly demanded,—

“Has all your interest in yon vessel ceased?”

“Far from it; it is just such a boat as a seaman’s eye most loves to
study!”

“Will you venture to board her?”

“At this hour? alone? I know not her commander, or her people.”

“There are other hours beside this, and a sailor is certain of a frank
reception from his messmates.”

“These slavers are not always willing to be boarded; they carry arms,
and know how to keep strangers at a distance.”

“Are there no watch-words, in the masonry of your trade, by which a
brother is known? Such terms as ‘stemming the waves with the taffrail,’
for instance, or some of those knowing phrases we have lately heard?”

Wilder kept his own keen look on the countenance of the other, as he
thus questioned him, and seemed to ponder long before he ventured on a
reply.

“Why do you demand all this of me?” he coldly asked.

“Because, as I believe that ‘faint heart never won fair lady,’ so do I
believe that indecision never won a ship. You wish a situation, you
say; and, if I were an Admiral, I would make you my flag-captain. At
the assizes, when we wish a brief, we have our manner of letting the
thing be known. But perhaps I am talking too much at random for an
utter stranger. You will however remember, that, though it is the
advice of a lawyer, it is given gratuitously.”

“And is it the more to be relied on for such extraordinary liberality?”

“Of that you must judge for yourself,” said the stranger in green, very
deliberately putting his foot on the ladder, and descending, until no
part of his person but his head was seen. “Here I go, literally cutting
the waves with my taffrail,” he added, as he descended backwards, and
seeming to take great pleasure in laying particular emphasis on the
words. “Adieu, my friend; if we do not meet again, I enjoin you never
to forget the rats in the Newport ruin.”

He disappeared as he concluded, and in another instant his light form
was on the ground. Turning with the most admirable coolness, he gave
the bottom of the ladder a trip with one of his feet, and laid the only
means of descent prostrate on the earth. Then, looking up at the
wondering Wilder, he nodded his head familiarly, repeated his adieu,
and passed with a swift step from beneath the arches.

“This is extraordinary conduct,” muttered Wilder who was by the process
left a prisoner in the ruin. After ascertaining that a fall from the
trap might endanger his legs, the young sailor ran to one of the
windows of the place, in order to reproach his treacherous comrade, or
indeed to assure himself that he was serious in thus deserting him. The
barrister was already out of hailing distance, and, before Wilder had
time to decide on what course to take, his active footsteps had led him
into the skirts of the town, among the buildings of which his person
became immediately lost to the eye.

During all the time occupied by the foregoing scenes and dialogue, Fid
and the negro had been diligently discussing the contents of the bag,
under the fence where they were last seen. As the appetite of the
former became appeased, his didactic disposition returned, and, at the
precise moment when Wilder was left alone in the tower, he was intently
engaged in admonishing the black on the delicate subject, of behaviour
in mixed society.

“And so you see, Guinea,” he concluded, “in or der to keep a
weather-helm in company, you are never to throw all aback, and go stern
foremost out of a dispute, as you have this day seen fit to do
According to my l’arning, that Master Nightingale is better in a
bar-room than in a squall; and if you had just luffed-up on his
quarter, when you saw me laying myself athwart his hawse in the
argument, you see we should have given him a regular jam in the
discourse, and then the fellow would have been shamed in the eyes of
all the by-standers. Who hails? what cook is sticking his neighbour’s
pig now?”

“Lor’! Misser Fid,” cried the black, “here masser Harry, wid a head out
of port-hole, up dereaway in a light-house, singing-out like a marine
in a boat wid a plug out!”

“Ay, ay, let him alone for hailing a top-gallant yard, or a
flying-jib-boom! The lad has a voice like a French horn, when he has a
mind to tune it! And what the devil is he manning the guns of that
weather-beaten wreck for? At all events, if he has to fight his craft
alone, there is no one to blame but himself, since he has gone to
quarters without beat of drum, or without, in any other manner, seeing
fit to muster his people.”

As Dick and the negro had both been making the best of their way
towards the ruin, from the moment they discovered the situation of
their friend, by this time they were within speaking distance of the
spot itself. Wilder, in those brief, pithy tones that distinguish the
manner in which a sea officer issues his orders, directed them to raise
the ladder. When he was liberated, he demanded, with a sufficiently
significant air, if they had observed the direction in which the
stranger in green had made his retreat?

“Do you mean the chap in boots, who was for shoving his oar into
another man’s rullock, a bit ago, on the small matter of wharf,
hereaway, in a range, over yonder house, bringing the north-east
chimney to hear in a line, with the mizen-top-gallant-mast-head of that
ship they are warping into the stream?”

“The very same.”

“He made a slant on the wind until he had weathered yonder bit of a
barn, and then he tacked and stretched away off here to the
east-and-by-south, going large, and with studding sails alow and aloft,
as I think, for he made a devil of a head-way.”

“Follow,” cried Wilder, starting forward in the direction indicated by
Fid, without waiting to hear any more of the other’s characteristic
explanations.

The search, however, was vain. Although they continued their inquiries
until long after the sun had set, no one could give them the smallest
tidings of what had become of the stranger in green. Some had seen him,
and marvelled at his singular costume, and bold and wandering look;
but, by all accounts, he had disappeared from the town as strangely and
mysteriously as he had entered it.




Chapter V.

“Are you so brave! I’ll have you talked with anon.”

_Coriolanus._


The good people of the town of Newport sought their rest at an early
hour. They were remarkable for that temperance and discretion which,
even to this day, distinguish the manners of the inhabitants of
New-England. By ten, the door of every house in the place was closed
for the night; and it is quite probable, that, before another hour had
passed, scarcely an eye was open, among all those which, throughout the
day, had been sufficiently alert, not only to superintend the interests
of their proper-owners, but to spare some wholesome glances at the
concerns of the rest of the neighbourhood.

The landlord of the “Foul Anchor,” as the inn, where Fid and
Nightingale had so nearly come to blows, was called, scrupulously
closed his doors at eight; a sort of expiation, by which he endeavoured
to atone, while he slept, for any moral peccadillos that he might have
committed during the day. Indeed it was to be observed as a rule, that
those who had the most difficulty in maintaining their good name, on
the score of temperance and moderation, were the most rigid in
withdrawing, in season, from the daily cares of the world. The
Admiral’s widow had given no little scandal, in her time, because
lights were so often seen burning in her house long after the hour
prescribed by custom for their extinction. Indeed, there were several
other little particulars in which this good lady had rendered herself
obnoxious to the whispered remarks of some of her female visitants. An
Episcopalian herself, she was always observed to be employed with her
needle on the evenings of Saturdays, though by no means distinguished
for her ordinary industry. It was, however, a sort of manner the good
lady had of exhibiting her adherence to the belief that the night of
Sunday was the orthodox evening of the Sabbath. On this subject there
was, in truth, a species of silent warfare between herself and the wife
of the principal clergyman of the town. It resulted, happily, in no
very striking marks of hostility. The latter was content to retaliate
by bringing her work, on the evenings of Sundays to the house of the
dowager, and occasionally interrupting their discourse, by a diligent
application of the needle for some five or six minutes at a time.
Against this contamination Mrs de Lacey took no other precaution than
to play with the leaves of a prayer book, precisely on the principle
that one uses holy water to keep the devil at that distance which the
Church has considered safest for its proselytes.

Let these matters be as they would, by ten o’clock on the night of the
day our tale commences, the town of Newport was as still as though it
did not contain a living soul. Watchmen there were none; for roguery
had not yet begun to thrive openly in the provinces. When, therefore,
Wilder and his two companions issued, at that hour, from their place of
retirement into the empty streets, they found them as still as if man
had never trod there. Not a candle was to be seen, nor the smallest
evidence of human life to be heard. It would seem our adventurers knew
their errand well; for, instead of knocking up any of the drowsy
publicans to demand admission, they held their way steadily to the
water’s side; Wilder leading, Fid coming next, and Scipio, in
conformity to all usage, bringing up the rear, in his ordinary, quiet,
submissive manner.

At the margin of the water they found several small boats, moored under
the shelter of a neighbouring wharf. Wilder gave his companions their
directions, and walked to a place convenient for embarking. After
waiting the necessary time, the bows of two boats came to the land at
the same moment, one of which was governed by the hands of the negro,
and the other by those of Fid.

“How’s this?” demanded Wilder; “Is not one enough? There is some
mistake between you.”

“No mistake at all,” responded Dick, suffering his oar to float on its
blade, and running his fingers into his hair, as if he was content with
his achievement “no more mistake than there is in taking the sun on a
clear day and in smooth water. Guinea is in the boat you hired; but a
bad bargain you made of it, as I thought at the time; and so, as
‘better late than never’ is my rule, I have just been casting an eye
over all the craft; if this is not the tightest and fastest rowing
clipper of them all, then am I no judge; and yet the parish priest
would tell you, if he were here, that my father was a boat-builder, ay,
and swear it too; that is to say, if you paid him well for the same.”

“Fellow,” returned Wilder, angrily, “you will one day induce me to turn
you adrift. Return the boat to the place where you found it, and see it
secured in the same manner as before.”

“Turn me adrift!” deliberately repeated Fid, “that would be cutting all
your weather lanyards at one blow, master Harry. Little good would come
of Scipio Africa and you, after I should part company. Have you ever
fairly logg’d the time we have sailed together?”

“Ay, have I; but it is possible to break even a friendship of twenty
years.”

“Saving your presence, master Harry, I’ll be d——d if I believe any such
thing. Here is Guinea, who is no better than a nigger, and therein far
from being a fitting messmate to a white man; but, being used to look
at his black face for four-and-twenty years, d’ye see, the colour has
got into my eye, and now it suits as well as another. Then, at sea, in
a dark night, it is not so easy a matter to tell the difference. No,
no, I am not tired of you yet, master Harry; and it is no trifle that
shall part us.”

“Then, abandon your habit of making free with the property of others.”

“I abandon nothing. No man can say he ever knowed me to quit a deck
while a plank stuck to the beams; and shall I abandon, as you call it,
my rights? What is the mighty matter, that all hands must be called to
see an old sailor punished? You gave a lubberly fisherman, a fellow who
has never been in deeper water than his own line will sound you gave
him, I say, a glittering Spaniard, just for the use of a bit of a skiff
for the night, or, mayhap, for a small reach into the morning. Well,
what does Dick do? He says to himself—for d——e if he’s any blab to run
round a ship grumbling at his officer—so he just says to himself,
‘That’s too much;’ and he looks about, to find the worth of it in some
of the fisherman’s neighbours. Money can be eaten; and, what is better,
it may be drunk; therefore, it is not to be pitched overboard with the
cook’s ashes. I’ll warrant me, if the truth could be fairly come by, it
would be found that, as to the owners of this here yawl, and that there
skiff, their mothers are cousins, and that the dollar will go in snuff
and strong drink among the whole family—so, no great harm done, after
all.”

Wilder made an impatient gesture to the other to obey, and walked up
the bank, while he had time to comply. Fid never disputed a positive
and distinct order, though he often took so much discretionary latitude
in executing those which were less precise. He did not hesitate,
therefore, to return the boat; but he did not carry his subordination
so far as to do it without complaint. When this act of justice was
performed, Wilder entered the skiff; and, seeing that his companions
were seated at their oars, he bade them to pull down the harbour,
admonishing them, at the same time, to make as little noise as
possible.

“The night I rowed you into Louisbourg, a-reconnoitring,” said Fid,
thrusting his left hand into his bosom, while, with his right, he
applied sufficient force to the light oar to make the skiff glide
swiftly over the water—“that night we muffled every thing even to our
tongues. When there is occasion to put stoppers on the mouths of a
boat’s crew, why, I’m not the man to gainsay it; but, as I am one of
them that thinks tongues were just as much made to talk with, as the
sea was made to live on, I uphold rational conversation in sober
society. S’ip, you Guinea where are you shoving the skiff to? hereaway
lies the island, and you are for going into yonder bit of a church.”

“Lay on your oars,” interrupted Wilder; “let the boat drift by this
vessel.”

They were now in the act of passing the ship, which had been warping
from the wharfs to an anchorage and in which the young sailor had so
clandestinely heard that Mrs Wyllys and the fascinating Gertrude were
to embark, on the following morning, for the distant province of
Carolina. As the skiff floated past, Wilder examined the vessel, by the
dim light of the stars, with a seaman’s eye. No part of her hull, her
spars, or her rigging, escaped his notice, and, when the whole became
confounded, by the distance, in one dark mass of shapeless matter, he
leaned his head over the side of his little bark, and mused long and
deeply with himself. To this abstraction Fid presumed to offer no
interruption. It had the appearance of professional duty; a subject
that, in his eyes, was endowed with a species of character that might
be called sacred. Scipio was habitually silent. After losing many
minutes in the manner, Wilder suddenly regained his recollection and
abruptly observed,—

“It is a tall ship, and one that should make a long chase!”

“That’s as may be,” returned the ready Fid. “Should that fellow get a
free wind, and his canvas all abroad, it might worry a King’s cruiser
to get nigh enough to throw the iron on his decks; but jamm’d up close
hauled, why, I’d engage to lay on his weather quarter, with the saucy
He—”

“Boys,” interrupted Wilder, “it is now proper that you dhould know
something of my future movements. We have been shipmates, I might
almost say messmates, for more than twenty years. I was better than an
infant, Fid, when you brought me to the commander of your ship, and not
only was instrumental in saving my life, but in putting me into a
situation to make an officer.”

“Ay, ay, you were no great matter, master Harry as to bulk; and a short
hammock served your turn as well as the captain’s birth.”

“I owe you a heavy debt, Fid, for that one generous act, and something,
I may add, for your steady adherence to me since.”

“Why, yes, I’ve been pretty steady in my conduct master Harry, in this
here business, more particularly seeing that I have never let go my
grapplings, though you’ve so often sworn to turn me adrift. As for
Guinea, here, the chap makes fair weather with you, blow high or blow
low, whereas it is no hard matter to get up a squall between us, as
might be seen in that small affair about the boat;”—

“Say no more of it,” interrupted Wilder, whose feelings appeared
sensibly touched, as his recollections ran over long-past and
bitterly-remembered scenes: “You know that little else than death can
part us, unless indeed you choose to quit me now. It is right that you
should know that I am engaged in a desperate pursuit, and one that may
easily end in ruin to myself and all who accompany me. I feel reluctant
to separate from you, my friends, for it may be a final parting, but,
at the same time, you should know all the danger.”

“Is there much more travelling by land?” bluntly demanded Fid.

“No; the duty, such as it is, will be done entirely in the water.”

“Then bring forth your ship’s books, and find room for such a mark as a
pair of crossed anchors, which stand for all the same as so many
letters reading ‘Richard Fid.’”

“But perhaps, when you know”——

“I want to know nothing about it, master Harry Haven’t I sailed with
you often enough under sealed orders, to trust my old body once more in
your company without forgetting my duty? What say you Guinea? will you
ship? or shall we land you at once, on yonder bit of a low point, and
leave you to scrape acquaintance with the clams?”

“’Em berry well off, here,” muttered the perfectly contented negro.

“Ay, ay, Guinea is like the launch of one of the coasters, always
towing in your wake, master Harry; whereas I am often luffing athwart
your hawse, or getting foul, in some fashion or other, on one of your
quarters. Howsomever, we are both shipped, as you see, in this here
cruise, with the particulars of which we are both well satisfied. So
pass the word among us, what is to be done next, and no more parley.”

“Remember the cautions you have already received returned Wilder, who
saw that the devotion of his followers was too infinite to need
quickening, and who knew, from long and perilous experience, how
implicitly he might rely on their fidelity, notwithstanding certain
failings, that were perhaps peculiar to their condition; remember what
I have already given in charge; and now pull directly for yon ship in
the outer harbour.”

Fid and the black promptly complied; and the boat was soon skimming the
water between the little island and what might, by comparison, be
called the main. As they approached the vessel, the strokes of the oars
were moderated, and finally abandoned altogether, Wilder preferring to
let the skiff drop down with the tide upon the object he wished well to
examine before venturing to board.

“Has not that ship her nettings triced to the rigging?” he demanded, in
a voice that was lowered to the tones necessary to escape observation,
and which betrayed, at the same time, the interest he took in the
reply.

“According to my sight, she has,” returned Fid; “your slavers are a
little pricked by conscience, and are never over-bold, unless when they
are chasing a young nigger on the coast of Congo. Now, there is about
as much danger of a Frenchman’s looking in here to-night, with this
land breeze and clear sky, as there is of my being made Lord High
Admiral of England; a thing not likely to come to pass soon, seeing
that the King don’t know a great deal of my merit.”

“They are, to a certainty, ready to give a warm reception to any
boarders!” continued Wilder, who rarely paid much attention to the
amplifications with which Fid so often saw fit to embellish the
discourse. “It would be no easy matter to carry a ship thus prepared,
if her people were true to themselves.”

“I warrant ye there is a full quarter-watch at least sleeping among her
guns, at this very moment, with a bright look-out from her cat-heads
and taffrail. I was once on the weather fore-yard-arm of the Hebe, when
I made, hereaway to the south-west, a sail coming large upon us,”—

“Hist! they are stirring on her decks!”

“To be sure they are. The cook is splitting a log; the captain has sung
out for his night-cap.”

The voice of Fid was lost in a summons from the ship, that sounded like
the roaring of some sea monster which had unexpectedly raised its head
above the water. The practised ears of our adventurers instantly
comprehended it to be, what it truly was, the manner in which it was
not unusual to hail a boat. Without taking time to ascertain that the
plashing of oars was to be heard in the distance. Wilder raised his
form in the skiff, and answered.

“How now?” exclaimed the same strange voice; “there is no one
victualled aboard here that speaks thus. Whereaway are you, he that
answers?”

“A little on your larboard bow; here, in the shadow of the ship.”

“And what are ye about, within the sweep of my hawse?”

“Cutting the waves with my taffrail,” returned Wilder, after a moment’s
hesitation.

“What fool has broke adrift here!” muttered his interrogator. “Pass a
blunderbuss forward, and let us see if a civil answer can’t be drawn
from the fellow.”

“Hold!” said a calm but authoritative voice from the most distant part
of the ship; “it is as it should be, let them approach.”

The man in the bows of the vessel bade them come along side, and then
the conversation ceased. Wilder had now an opportunity to discover,
that, as the hail had been intended for another boat, which was still
at a distance, he had answered prematurely. But, perceiving that it was
too late to retreat with safety, or perhaps only acting in conformity
to his original determination, he directed his companions to obey.

“‘Cutting the waves with the taffrail,’ is not the civillest answer a
man can give to a hail,” muttered Fid, as he dropped the blade of his
oar into the water; “nor is it a matter to be logged in a man’s memory,
that they have taken offence at the same. Howsomever, master Harry, if
they are so minded as to make a quarrel about the thing, give them as
good as they send, and count on manly backers.”

No reply was made to this encouraging assurance for, by this time, the
skiff was within a few feet of the ship. Wilder ascended the side of
the vessel amid a deep, and, as he felt it to be, an ominous silence.
The night was dark, though enough light fell from the stars, that were
here and there visible, to render objects sufficiently distinct to the
practised eyes of a seaman. When our young adventurer touched the deck,
he cast a hurried and scrutinizing look about him, as if doubts and
impressions, which had long been harboured, were all to be resolved by
that first view.

An ignorant landsman would have been struck with the order and symmetry
with which the tall spars rose towards the heavens, from the black mass
of the hull, and with the rigging that hung in the air, one dark line
crossing another, until all design seemed confounded in the confusion
and intricacy of the studied maze. But to Wilder these familiar objects
furnished no immediate attraction. His first rapid glance had, like
that of all seamen, it is true, been thrown upward, but it was
instantly succeeded by the brief, though keen, examination to which we
have just alluded. With the exception of one who, though his form was
muffled in a large sea-cloak, seemed to be an officer, not a living
creature was to be seen on the decks. On either side there was a dark,
frowning battery, arranged in the beautiful and imposing order of
marine architecture; but nowhere could he find a trace of the crowd of
human beings which usually throng the deck of an armed ship, or that
was necessary to render the engines effective. It might be that her
people were in their hammocks, as usual at that hour, but still it was
customary to leave a sufficient number on the watch, to look to the
safety of the vessel. Finding himself so unexpectedly confronted with a
single individual, our adventurer began to be sensible of the
awkwardness of his situation, and of the necessity of some explanation.

“You are no doubt surprised, sir,” he said, “at the lateness of the
hour that I have chosen for my visit.”

“You were certainly expected earlier,” was the laconic answer.

“Expected!”

“Ay, expected. Have I not seen you, and your two companions who are in
the boat, reconnoitring us half the day, from the wharfs of the town,
and even from the old tower on the hill? What did all this curiosity
foretel, but an intention to come on board?”

“This is odd, I will acknowledge!” exclaimed Wilder, in some secret
alarm. “And, then, you had notice of my intentions?”

“Hark ye, friend,” interrupted the other, indulging in a short, low
laugh; “from your outfit and appearance I think I am right in calling
you a seaman: Do you imagine that glasses were forgotten in the
inventory of this ship? or, do you fancy that we don’t know how to use
them?”

“You must have strong reasons for looking so deeply into the movements
of strangers on the land.”

“Hum! Perhaps we expect our cargo from the country. But I suppose you
have not come so far in the dark to look at our manifest. You would see
the Captain?”

“Do I not see him?”

“Where?” demanded the other, with a start that manifested he stood in a
salutary awe of his superior.

“In yourself.”

“I! I have not got so high in the books, though my time may come yet,
some fair day. Hark ye, friend; you passed under the stern of yonder
ship, which has been hauling into the stream, in coming out to us?”

“Certainly; she lies, as you see, directly in my course.”

“A wholesome-looking craft that! and one well found, I warrant you. She
is quite ready to be off they tell me.”

“It would so seem: her sails are bent, and she floats like a ship that
is full.”

“Of what?” abruptly demanded the other.

“Of articles mentioned in her manifest, no doubt. But you seem light
yourself: if you are to load at this port, it will be some days before
you put to sea.”

“Hum! I don’t think we shall be long after our neighbour,” the other
remarked, a little drily. Then, as if he might have said too much, he
added hastily, “We slavers carry little else, you know, than our
shackles and a few extra tierces of rice; the rest of our ballast is
made up of these guns, and the stuff to put into them.”

“And is it usual for ships in the trade to carry so heavy an armament?”

“Perhaps it is, perhaps not. To own the truth, there is not much law on
the coast, and the strong arm often does as much as the right. Our
owners, therefore, I believe, think it quite as well there should be no
lack of guns and ammunition on board.”

“They should also give you people to work them.”

“They have forgotten that part of their wisdom, certainly.”

His words were nearly drowned by the same gruff voice that had
brought-to the skiff of Wilder, which sent another hoarse summons
across the water, rolling out sounds that were intended to say,—

“Boat, ahoy!”

The answer was quick, short, and nautical; but it was rendered in a low
and cautious tone. The individual, with whom Wilder had been holding
such equivocating parlance, seemed embarrassed by the sudden
interruption, and a little at a loss to know how to conduct himself. He
had already made a motion towards leading his visiter to the cabin,
when the sounds of oars were heard clattering in a boat along side of
the ship, announcing that he was too late. Bidding the other remain
where he was, he sprang to the gangway, in order to receive those who
had just arrived.

By this sudden desertion, Wilder found himself in entire possession of
that part of the vessel where he stood. It gave him a better
opportunity to renew his examination, and to cast a scrutinizing eye
also over the new comers.

Some five or six athletic-looking seamen ascended from the boat, in
profound silence. A short and whispered conference took place between
them and their officer, who appeared both to receive a report, and to
communicate an order. When these preliminary matters were ended, a line
was lowered, from a whip on the main-yard, the end evidently dropping
into the newly-arrived boat. In a moment, the burthen it was intended
to transfer to the ship was seen swinging in the air, midway between
the water and the spar. It then slowly descended, inclining inboard
until it was safely, and somewhat carefully, landed on the decks of the
vessel.

During the whole of this process, which in itself had nothing
extraordinary or out of the daily practice of large vessels in port,
Wilder had strained his eyes, until they appeared nearly ready to start
from their sockets. The black mass, which had been lifted from the
boat, seemed, while it lay against the background of sky, to possess
the proportions of the human form. The seamen gathered about this
object After much bustle, and a good deal of low conversation, the
burthen or body, whichever it might be called, was raised by the men,
and the whole disappeared together, behind the masts, boats, and guns
which crowded the forward part of the vessel.

The whole event was of a character to attract the attention of Wilder.
His eye was not, however, so intently riveted on the groupe in the
gangway, as to prevent his detecting a dozen black objects, that were
suddenly thrust forward, from behind the spars and other dark masses of
the vessel. They might be blocks swinging in the air, but they bore
also a wonderful resemblance to human heads. The simultaneous manner in
which they both appeared and disappeared, served to confirm this
impression; nor, to confess the truth, had our adventurer any doubt
that curiosity had drawn so many inquiring countenances from their
respective places of concealment. He had not much leisure, however, to
reflect on all these little accompaniments of his situation, before he
was rejoined by his former companion, who, to all appearance, was again
left, with himself, to the entire possession of the deck.

“You know the trouble of getting off the people from the shore,” the
officer observed, “when a ship is ready to sail.”

“You seem to have a summary method of hoisting them in,” returned
Wilder.

“Ah! you speak of the fellow on the whip? Your eyes are good, friend,
to tell a jack-knife from a marling-spike, at this distance. But the
lad was mutinous; that is, not absolutely mutinous—but, drunk. As
mutinous as a man can well be, who can neither speak, sit, nor stand.”

Then, as if as well content with his humour as with this simple
explanation, the other laughed and chuckled, in a manner that showed he
was in perfect good humour with himself.

“But all this time you are left on deck,” he quickly added, “and the
Captain is waiting your appearance in the cabin: Follow; I will be your
pilot.”

“Hold,” said Wilder; “will it not be as well to announce my visit?”

“He knows it already: Little takes place aboard, here, that does not
reach his ears before it gets into the log-book.”

Wilder made no further objection, but indicated his readiness to
proceed. The other led the way to the bulkhead which separated the
principal cabin from the quarter-deck of the ship; and, pointing to a
door, he rather whispered than said aloud,—

“Tap twice; if he answer, go in.”

Wilder did as he was directed. His first summons was either unheard or
disregarded. On repeating it, he was bid to enter. The young seaman
opened the door, with a crowd of sensations, that will find their
solution in the succeeding parts of our narrative and instantly stood,
under the light of a powerful lamp, in the presence of the stranger in
green.




Chapter VI.

“The good old plan,
That they should get, who have the power,
And they should keep, who can.”

_Wordsworth._


The apartment, in which our adventurer now found himself, afforded no
bad illustration of the character of its occupant. In its form, and
proportions it was a cabin of the usual size and arrangements; but, in
its furniture and equipments, it exhibited a singular admixture of
luxury and martial preparation. The lamp, which swung from the upper
deck, was of solid silver; and, though adapted to its present situation
by mechanical ingenuity, there was that, in its shape and ornaments,
which betrayed it had once been used before some shrine of a far more
sacred character. Massive candlesticks of the same precious metal, and
which partook of the same ecclesiastical formation, were on a venerable
table, whose mahogany was glittering with the polish of half a century,
and whose gilded claws, and carved supporters, bespoke an original
destination very different from the ordinary service of a ship. A
couch, covered with cut velvet, stood along the transom; while a divan,
of blue silk, lay against the bulkhead opposite, manifesting, by its
fashion, its materials, and its piles of pillows, that even Asia had
been made to contribute to the ease of its luxurious owner. In addition
to these prominent articles, there were cut glass, mirrors, plate, and
even hangings; each of which, by something peculiar in its fashion or
materials, bespoke an origin different from that of its neighbour. In
short, splendour and elegance seemed to have been much more consulted
than propriety, or conformity in taste, in the selection of most of
those articles, which had been, oddly enough, made to contribute to the
caprice or to the comfort of their singular possessor.

In the midst of this medley of wealth and luxury, appeared the frowning
appendages of war. The cabin included four of those dark cannon whose
weight and number had been first to catch the attention of Wilder.
Notwithstanding they were placed in such close proximity to the
articles of ease just enumerated, it only needed a seaman’s eye to
perceive that they stood ready for instant service, and that five
minutes of preparation would strip the place of all its tinsel, and
leave it a warm and well protected battery. Pistols, sabres,
half-pikes, boarding-axes and all the minor implements of marine
warfare, were arranged about the cabin in such a manner as to aid in
giving it an appearance of wild embellishment, while, at the same time,
each was convenient to the hand.

Around the mast was placed a stand of muskets, and strong wooden bars,
that were evidently made to fit in brackets on either side of the door,
sufficiently showed that the bulkhead might easily be converted into a
barrier. The entire arrangement proclaimed that the cabin was
considered the citadel of the ship. In support of this latter opinion,
appeared a hatch, which evidently communicated with the apartments of
the inferior officers, and which also opened a direct passage into the
magazine. These dispositions, a little different from what he had been
accustomed to see, instantly struck the eye of Wilder, though leisure
was not then given to reflect on their uses and objects.

There was a latent expression of satisfaction, something modified,
perhaps, by irony, on the countenance of the stranger in green, (for he
was still clad as when first introduced to the reader,) as he arose, on
the entrance of his visiter. The two stood several moments without
speaking, when the pretended barrister saw fit to break the awkward
silence.

“To what happy circumstance is this ship indebted for the honour of
such a visit?” he demanded.

“I believe I may answer, To the invitation of her Captain,” Wilder
answered, with a steadiness and calmness equal to that displayed by the
other.

“Did he show you his commission, in assuming that office? They say, at
sea, I believe, that no cruiser should be found without a commission.”

“And what say they at the universities on this material point?”

“I see I may as well lay aside my gown, and own the marling-spike!”
returned the other, smiling, “There is something about the
trade—_profession_, though, I believe, is your favourite word—there is
something about the profession, which betrays us to each other. Yes, Mr
Wilder,” he added with dignity motioning to his guest to imitate his
example, and take a seat, “I am, like yourself, a seaman bred and happy
am I to add, the Commander of this gallant vessel.”

“Then, must you admit that I have not intruded without a sufficient
warrant.”

“I confess the same. My ship has filled your eye agreeably; nor shall I
be slow to acknowledge, that I have seen enough about your air, and
person, to make me wish to be an older acquaintance. You want service?”

“One should be ashamed of idleness in these stirring times.”

“It is well. This is an oddly-constructed world in which we live, Mr
Wilder! Some think themselves in danger, with a foundation beneath them
no less solid than _terra firma_, while others are content to trust
their fortunes on the sea. So, again, some there are who believe
praying is the business of man; and then come others who are sparing of
their breath, and take those favours for themselves which they have not
always the leisure or the inclination to ask for. No doubt you thought
it prudent to inquire into the nature of our trade, before you came
hither in quest of employment?”

“You are said to be a slaver, among the townsmen of Newport.”

“They are never wrong, your village gossips! If witchcraft ever truly
existed on earth, the first of the cunning tribe has been a village
innkeeper; the second, its doctor; and the third, its priest. The right
to the fourth honour may be disputed between the barber and the
tailor.—Roderick!”

The Captain accompanied the word by which he so unceremoniously
interrupted himself, by striking a light blow on a Chinese gong, which,
among other curiosities, was suspended from one of the beams of the
upper deck, within reach of his hand.

“I say, Roderick, do you sleep?”

A light and active boy darted out of one of the two little state-rooms
which were constructed on the quarters of the ship, and answered to the
summons by announcing his presence.

“Has the boat returned?”

The reply was in the affirmative.

“And has she been successful?”

“The General is in his room, sir, and can give you an answer better
than I.”

“Then, let the General appear, and report the result of his campaign.”

Wilder was by far too deeply interested, to break the sudden reverie
into which his companion had now evidently fallen, even by breathing as
loud as usual. The boy descended through the hatch like a serpent
gliding into his hole, or, rather, a fox darting into his burrow, and
then a profound stillness reigned in the cabin. The Commander of the
ship leaned his head on his hand, appearing utterly unconscious of the
presence of any stranger. The silence might have been of much longer
duration, had it not been interrupted by the appearance of a third
person. A straight, rigid form slowly elevated itself through the
little hatchway, very much in the manner that theatrical spectres are
seen to make their appearance on the stage, until about half of the
person was visible, when it ceased to rise, and turned its disciplined
countenance on the Captain.

“I wait for orders,” said a mumbling voice, which issued from lips that
were hardly perceived to move.

Wilder started as this unexpected individual appeared; nor was the
stranger wanting in an aspect sufficiently remarkable to produce
surprise in any spectator. The face was that of a man of fifty, with
the lineaments rather indurated than faded by time. Its colour was an
uniform red, with the exception of one of those expressive little
fibrous tell-tales on each cheek, which bear so striking a resemblance
to the mazes of the vine, and which would seem to be the true origin of
the proverb which says that “good wine needs no bush.” The head was
bald on its crown; but around either ear was a mass of grizzled hair,
pomatumed and combed into formal military bristles. The neck was long,
and supported by a black stock; the shoulders, arms, and body were
those of a man of tall stature; and the whole were enveloped in an
over-coat, which, though it had something methodical in its fashion,
was evidently intended as a sort of domino. The Captain raised his head
as the other spoke, exclaiming,—

“Ah! General, are you at your post? Did you find the land?”

“Yes.”

“And the point?—and the man?”

“Both.”

“And what did you?”

“Obey orders.”

“That was right.—You are a jewel for an executive officer, General;
and, as such, I wear you near my heart. Did the fellow complain?”

“He was gagged.”

“A summary method of closing remonstrance. It is as it should be,
General; as usual, you have merited my approbation.”

“Then reward me for it.”

“In what manner? You are already as high in rank as I can elevate you.
The next step must be knighthood.”

“Pshaw! my men are no better than militia. They want coats.”

“They shall have them. His Majesty’s guards shall not be half so well
equipt. General, I wish you a good night.”

The figure descended, in the same rigid, spectral manner as it had
risen on the sight, leaving Wilder again alone with the Captain of the
ship. The latter seemed suddenly struck with the fact that this odd
interview had occurred in the presence of one who was nearly a
stranger, and that, in his eyes at least, it might appear to require
some explanation.

“My friend,” he said, with an air something explanatory while it was at
the same time not a little naughty, “commands what, in a more regular
cruiser, would be called the ‘marine guard.’ He has gradually risen, by
service, from the rank of a subaltern, to the high station which he now
fills. You perceive he smells of the camp?”

“More than of the ship. Is it usual for slavers to be so well provided
with military equipments? I find you armed at all points.”

“You would know more of us, before we proceed to drive our bargain?”
the Captain answered, with a smile. He then opened a little casket that
stood on the table, and drew from it a parchment, which he coolly
handed to Wilder, saying, as he did so, with one of the quick,
searching glances of his restless eye, “You will see, by that, we have
‘letters of marque,’ and are duly authorized to fight the battles of
the King, while we are conducting our own more peaceable affairs.”

“This is the commission of a brig!”

“True, true. I have given you the wrong paper. I believe you will find
this more accurate.”

“This is truly a commission for the ‘good ship Seven Sisters;’ but you
surely carry more than ten guns, and, then, these in your cabin throw
nine instead of four pound shot!”

“Ah! you are as precise as though you had been the barrister, and I the
blundering seaman. I dare say you have heard of such a thing as
stretching a commission,” continued the Captain drily, as he carelessly
threw the parchment back among a pile of similar documents. Then,
rising from his seat, he began to pace the cabin with quick steps, as
he continued, “I need not tell you, Mr Wilder, that ours is a hazardous
pursuit. Some call it lawless. But, as I am little addicted to
theological disputes, we will wave the question. You have not come here
without knowing your errand.”

“I am in search of a birth.”

“Doubtless you have reflected well on the matter and know your own mind
as to the trade in which you would sail. In order that no time may be
wasted and that our dealings may be frank, as becomes two honest
seamen, I will confess to you, at once, that I have need of you. A
brave and skilful man, one older, though, I dare say, not better than
yourself occupied that larboard state-room, within the month; but, poor
fellow, he is food for fishes ere this.”

“He was drowned?”

“Not he! He died in open battle with a King’s ship!”

“A King’s ship! Have you then stretched your commission so far as to
find a warranty for giving battle to his Majesty’s cruisers?”

“Is there no King but George the Second! Perhaps she bore the white
flag, perhaps a Dane. But he was truly a gallant fellow; and there lies
his birth, as empty as the day he was carried from it, to be cast into
the sea. He was a man fit to succeed to the command, should an evil
star shine on my fate, I think I could die easier, were I to know this
noble vessel was to be transmitted to one who would make such use of
her as should be.”

“Doubtless your owners would provide a successor in the event of such a
calamity.”

“My owners are very reasonable,” returned the other, with a meaning
smile, while he cast another searching glance at his guest, which
compelled Wilder to lower his own eyes to the cabin floor; “they seldom
trouble me with importunities, or orders.”

“They are indulgent! I see that flags were not forgotten in your
inventory: Do they also give you permission to wear any one of all
those ensigns, as you may please?”

As this question was put, the expressive and understanding looks of the
two seamen met. The Captain drew a flag from the half-open locker,
where it had caught the attention of his visiter, and, letting the roll
unfold itself on the deck, he answered,—

“This is the Lily of France, you see. No bad emblem of your stainless
Frenchman. An escutcheon of pretence without spot, but, nevertheless, a
little soiled by too much use. Here, you have the calculating Dutchman;
plain, substantial, and cheap. It is a flag I little like. If the ship
be of value, her owners are not often willing to dispose of her without
a price. This is your swaggering Hamburgher. He is rich in the
possession of one town, and makes his boast of it, in these towers. Of
the rest of his mighty possessions he wisely says nothing in his
allegory These are the Crescents of Turkey; a moon-struck nation, that
believe themselves the inheritors of heaven. Let them enjoy their
birthright in peace; it is seldom they are found looking for its
blessings on the high seas—and these, the little satellites that play
about the mighty moon; your Barbarians of Africa. I hold but little
communion with these wide-trowsered gentry, for they seldom deal in
gainful traffic. And yet,” he added, glancing his eye at the silken
divan before which Wilder was seated, “I have met the rascals; nor have
we parted entirely without communication! Ah! here comes the man I
like; your golden, gorgeous Spaniard! This field of yellow reminds one
of the riches of her mines; and this Crown! one might fancy it of
beaten gold, and stretch forth a hand to grasp the treasure What a
blazonry is this for a galleon! Here is the humbler Portuguese; and yet
is he not without a wealthy look. I have often fancied there were true
Brazilian diamonds in this kingly bauble. Yonder crucifix, which you
see hanging in pious proximity to my state-room door, is a specimen of
the sort I mean.” Wilder turned his head, to throw a look on the
valuable emblem, that was really suspended from the bulkhead, within a
few inches of the spot the other named. After satisfying his curiosity
he was in the act of giving his attention again to the flags, when he
detected another of those penetrating, but stolen glances with which
his companion so often read the countenance of his associates. It might
have been that the Captain was endeavouring to discover the effect his
profuse display of wealth had produced on the mind of his visiter. Let
that be as it would, Wilder smiled; for, at that moment, the idea first
occurred that the ornaments of the cabin had been thus studiously
arranged with an expectation of his arrival, and with the wish that
their richness might strike his senses favourably. The other caught the
expression of his eye; and perhaps he mistook its meaning, when he
suffered his construction of what it said to animate him to pursue his
whimsical analysis of the flags, with an air still more cheerful and
vivacious than before.

“These double-headed monsters are land birds and seldom risk a flight
over deep waters. They are not for me. Your hardy, valiant Dane; your
sturdy Swede; a nest of smaller fry,” he continued, passing his hand
rapidly over a dozen little rolls as they lay, each in its own
repository, “who spread their bunting like larger states; and your
luxurious Neapolitan. Ah! here come the Keys of Heaven! This is a flag
to die under! I lay yard-arm and yard-arm, once, under that very bit of
bunting, with a heavy corsair from Algiers”—

“What! Did you choose to fight under the banners of the Church?”

“In mere devotion. I pictured to myself the surprise that would
overcome the barbarian, when he should find that we did not go to
prayers. We gave him but a round or two, before he swore that Allah had
decreed he might surrender. There was a moment while I luffed-up on his
weather-quarter, I believe, that the Mussulman thought the whole of the
holy Conclave was afloat, and that the downfall of Mahomet and his
offspring was ordained. I provoked the conflict, I will confess, in
showing him these peaceful Keys, which he is dull enough to think open
half the strong boxes of Christendom.”

“When he had confessed his error, you let him go?”

“Hum!—with my blessing. There was some interchange of commodities
between us, and then we parted. I left him smoking his pipe, in a heavy
sea with his fore-topmast over the side, his mizzenmast under his
counter, and some six or seven holes in his bottom, that let in the
water just as fast as the pumps discharged it. You see he was in a fair
way to acquire his portion of the inheritance. But Heaven had ordained
it all, and he was satisfied!”

“And what flags are these which you have passed? They seem rich, and
many.”

“These are England; like herself, aristocratic, party-coloured, and a
good deal touched by humour. Here is bunting to note all ranks and
conditions, as if men were not made of the same flesh, and the people
of one kingdom might not all sail honestly under the same emblems. Here
is my Lord High Admiral; your St. George; your field of red, and of
blue, as chance may give you a leader, or the humour of the moment
prevail; the stripes of mother India, and the Royal Standard itself!”

“The Royal Standard!”

“Why not? A commander is termed a ‘monarch in his ship.’ Ay; this is
the Standard of the King and, what is more, it has been worn in
presence of an Admiral!”

“This needs explanation!” exclaimed his listener who seemed to feel
much that sort of horror that a churchman would discover at the
detection of sacrilege. “To wear the Royal Standard in presence of a
flag! We all know how difficult, and even dangerous, it becomes, to
sport a simple pennant, with the eyes of a King’s cruiser on us—”

“I love to flaunt the rascals!” interrupted the other, with a
smothered, but bitter laugh. “There is pleasure in the thing!—In order
to punish, they must possess the power; an experiment often made, but
never yet successful. You understand balancing accounts with the law,
by showing a broad sheet of canvas! I need say no more.”

“And which of all these flags do you most use?” demanded Wilder, after
a moment of intense thought.

“As to mere sailing, I am as whimsical as a girl in her teens in the
choice of her ribbons. I will often show you a dozen in a day. Many is
the worthy trader who has gone into port with his veritable account of
this Dutchman, or that Dane, with whom he has spoken in the offing. As
to fighting, though I have been known to indulge a humour, too, in that
particular, still is there one which I most affect.”

“And that is?——”

The Captain kept his hand, for a moment, on the roll he had touched,
and seemed to read the very soul of his visiter, so intent and keen was
his look the while. Then, suffering the bunting to fall, a deep,
blood-red field, without relief or ornament of any sort, unfolded
itself, as he answered, with emphasis,—

“This.”

“That is the colour of a Rover!”

“Ay, it is _red_! I like it better than your gloomy fields of black,
with death’s heads, and other childish scare-crows. It threatens
nothing; but merely says, ‘Such is the price at which I am to be
bought.’ Mr Wilder,” he added, losing the mixture of irony and
pleasantry with which he had supported the previous dialogue, in an air
of authority, “We understand each other. It is time that each should
sail under his proper colours. I need not tell you who I am.”

“I believe it is unnecessary,” said Wilder. “If I can comprehend these
palpable signs, I stand in presence of—of—”

“The Red Rover,” continued the other, observing that he hesitated to
pronounce the appalling name. “It is true; and I hope this interview is
the commencement of a durable and firm friendship. I know not the
secret cause, but, from the moment of our meeting, a strong and
indefinable interest has drawn me towards you. Perhaps I felt the void
which my situation has drawn about me;—be that as it may, I receive you
with a longing heart and open arms.”

Though it must be very evident, from what-preceded this open avowal,
that Wilder was not ignorant of the character of the ship on board of
which he had just ventured, yet did he not receive the acknowledgment
without embarrassment. The reputation of this renowned freebooter, his
daring, his acts of liberality and licentiousness so frequently
blended, and his desperate disregard of life on all occasions, were
probably crowding together in the recollection of our more youthful
adventurer, and caused him to feel that species of responsible
hesitation to which we are all more or less subject on the occurrence
of important events, be they ever so much expected.

“You have not mistaken my purpose, or my suspicions,” he at length
answered, “for I own have come in search of this very ship. I accept
the service; and, from this moment, you will rate me in whatever
station you may think me best able to discharge my duty with credit.”

“You are next to myself. In the morning, the same shall be proclaimed
on the quarter-deck; and, in the event of my death, unless I am
deceived in my man, you will prove my successor. This may strike you as
sudden confidence. It is so, in part, I must acknowledge; but our
shipping lists cannot be opened, like those of the King, by beat of
drum in the streets of the metropolis; and, then, am I no judge of the
human heart, if my frank reliance on your faith does not, in itself,
strengthen your good feelings in my favour.”

“It does!” exclaimed Wilder, with sudden and deep emphasis.

The Rover smiled calmly, as he continued,—

“Young gentlemen of your years are apt to carry no small portion of
their hearts in their hands. But, notwithstanding this seeming
sympathy, in order that you may have sufficient respect for the
discretion of your leader, it is necessary that I should say we have
met before. I was apprised of your intention to seek me out, and to
offer to join me.”

“It is impossible!” cried Wilder, “No human being—”

“Can ever be certain his secrets are safe,” interrupted the other,
“when he carries a face as ingenuous as your own. It is but
four-and-twenty hours since you were in the good town of Boston.”

“I admit that much; but—”

“You will soon admit the rest. You were too curious in your inquiries
of the dolt who declares he was robbed by us of his provisions and
sails. The false-tongued villain! It may be well for him to keep from
my path, or he may get a lesson that shall prick his honesty. Does he
think such pitiful game as he would induce me to spread a single inch
of canvas, or even to lower a boat into the sea!”

“Is not his statement, then, true?” demanded Wilder, in a surprise he
took no pains to conceal.

“True! Am I what report has made me? Look keenly at the monster, that
nothing may escape you,” returned the Rover, with a hollow laugh, in
which scorn struggled to keep down the feelings of wounded pride.
“Where are the horns, and the cloven foot? Snuff the air: Is it not
tainted with sulphur? But enough of this. I knew of your inquiries, and
liked your mien. In short, you were my study; and, though my approaches
were made with some caution they were sufficiently nigh to effect the
object. You pleased me, Wilder; and I hope the satisfaction may be
mutual.”

The newly engaged buccanier bowed to the compliment of his superior,
and appeared at some little loss for a reply: As if to get rid of the
subject at once, he hurriedly observed,—

“As we now understand each other, I will intrude no longer, but leave
you for the night, and return to my duty in the morning.”

“Leave me!” returned the Rover, stopping short on his walk, and
fastening his eye keenly on the other. “It is not usual for my officers
to leave me at this hour. A sailor should love his ship, and never
sleep out of her, unless on compulsion.”

“We may as well understand each other,” said Wilder, quickly. “If it is
to be a slave, and, like one of the bolts, a fixture in the vessel,
that you need me, our bargain is at an end.”

“Hum! I admire your spirit, sir, much more than your discretion. You
will find me an attached friend and one who little likes a separation,
however short Is there not enough to content you here? I will not speak
of such low considerations as those which administer to the ordinary
appetites. But, you have been taught the value of reason; here are
books—you have taste; here is elegance—you are poor, here is wealth.”

“They amount to nothing, without liberty,” coldly returned the other.

“And what is this liberty you ask? I hope, young man, you would not so
soon betray the confidence you have just received! Our acquaintance is
but short, and I may have been too hasty in my faith.”

“I must return to the land,” Wilder added, firmly, “if it be only to
know that I am intrusted, and am not a prisoner.”

“There is generous sentiment, or deep villany, in all this,” resumed
the Rover, after a minute of deep thought. “I will believe the former.
Declare to me, that, while in the town of Newport, you will inform no
soul of the true character of this ship.”

“I will swear it,” eagerly interrupted Wilder.

“On this cross,” rejoined the Rover, with a sarcastic laugh; “on this
diamond-mounted cross! No, sir,” he added, with a proud curl of the
lip, as he cast the jewel contemptuously aside, “oaths are made for men
who need laws to keep them to their promises; I need no more than the
clear and unequivocal affirmation of a gentleman.”

“Then, plainly and unequivocally do I declare, that, while in Newport,
I will discover the character of this ship to no one, without your
wish, or order so to do. Nay more”—

“No more. It is wise to be sparing of our pledges, and to say no more
than the occasion requires. The time may come when you might do good to
yourself, without harming me, by being unfettered by a promise. In an
hour, you shall land; that time will be needed to make you acquainted
with the terms of your enlistment, and to grace my rolls with your
name.—Roderick,” he added, again touching the gong, “you are wanted,
boy.”

The same active lad, that had made his appearance at the first summons,
ran up the steps from the cabin beneath, and announced his presence
again by his voice.

“Roderick,” continued the Rover, “this is my future lieutenant, and, of
course, your officer, and my friend. Will you take refreshment, sir?
there is little, that man needs, which Roderick cannot supply.”

“I thank you; I have need of none.”

“Then, have the goodness to follow the boy. He will show you into the
dining apartment beneath, and give you the written regulations. In an
hour, you will have digested the code, and by that time I shall be with
you. Throw the light more upon the ladder, boy; you can descend
_without_ a ladder though, it would seem, or I should not, at this
moment, have the pleasure of your company.”

The intelligent smile of the Rover was unanswered by any corresponding
evidence from the subject of his joke, that he found satisfaction in
the remembrance of the awkward situation in which he had been left in
the tower. The former caught the displeased expression of the other’s
countenance, as he gravely prepared to follow the boy, who already
stood in the hatchway with a light. Advancing a step with the grace and
tones of sensitive breeding, he said quickly,—

“Mr Wilder, I owe you an apology for my seeming rudeness at parting on
the hill. Though I believed you mine, I was not sure of my acquisition.
You will readily see how necessary it might be, to one in my situation,
to throw off a companion at such a moment.”

Wilder turned, with a countenance from which every shade of displeasure
had vanished, and motioned to him to say no more.

“It was awkward enough, certainly, to find one’s self in such a prison;
but I feel the justice of what you say. I might have done the very
thing myself, if the same presence of mind were at hand to help me.”

“The good man, who grinds in the Newport ruin, must be in a sad way,
since all the rats are leaving his mill,” cried the Rover gaily, as his
companion descended after the boy. Wilder now freely returned his open,
cordial laugh, and then, as he descended, the cabin was left to him
who, a few minutes before, had been found in its quiet possession.




Chapter VII.

“The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.”
_Apoth._ “My poverty, but not my will, consents.”

_Romeo and Juliet._


The Rover arrested his step, as the other disappeared and stood for
more than a minute in an attitude of high and self-gratulating triumph.
It was quite apparent he was exulting in his success. But, though his
intelligent face betrayed the satisfaction of the inward man, it was
illumined by no expression of vulgar joy. It was the countenance of one
who was suddenly relieved from intense care, rather than that of a man
who was greedy of profiting by the services of others. Indeed, it would
not have been difficult, for a close and practised observer, to have
detected a shade of regret in the lightings of his seductive smile, or
in the momentary flashes of his changeful eye. The feeling, however,
quickly passed away, and his whole figure and countenance resumed the
ordinary easy mien in which he most indulged in his hours of
retirement.

After allowing sufficient time for the boy to conduct Wilder to the
necessary cabin, and to put him in possession of the regulations for
the police of the ship, the Captain again touched the gong, and once
more summoned the former to his presence. The lad had however, to
approach the elbow of his master, and to speak thrice, before the other
was conscious that he had answered his call.

“Roderick,” said the Rover, after a long pause, “are you there?”

“I am here,” returned a low, and seemingly a mournful voice.

“Ah! you gave him the regulations?”

“I did.”

“And he reads?”

“He reads.”

“It is well. I would speak to the General. Roderick, you must have need
of rest; good night; let the General be summoned to a council, and—Good
night, Roderick.”

The boy made an assenting reply; but, instead of springing, with his
former alacrity, to execute the order he lingered a moment nigh his
master’s chair. Failing, however, in his wish to catch his eye, he
slowly and reluctantly descended the stairs which led into the lower
cabins, and was seen no more.

It is needless to describe the manner in which the General made his
second appearance. It differed in no particular from his former entrée,
except that, on this occasion, the whole of his person was developed.
He appeared a tall, upright form, that was far from being destitute of
natural grace and proportions, but which had been so exquisitely
drilled into simultaneous movement, that the several members had so far
lost the power of volition, as to render it impossible for one to stir,
without producing some thing like a correspondent demonstration in all
its fellows. This rigid and well-regulated personage, after making a
formal military bow to his superior, helped himself to a chair, in
which, after some little time lost in preparation, he seated himself in
silence. The Rover seemed conscious of his presence; for he
acknowledged his salute by a gentle inclination of his own head; though
he did not appear to think it necessary to suspend his ruminations the
more on that account. At length, however, he turned short upon his
companion, and said abruptly,—

“General, the campaign is not finished.”

“What remains? the field is won, and the enemy is a prisoner.”

“Ay, your part of the adventure is well achieved, but much of mine
remains to be done. You saw the youth in the lower cabin?”

“I did.”

“And how find you his appearance?”

“Maritime.”

“That is as much as to say, you like him not.”

“I like discipline.”

“I am much mistaken if you do not find him to your taste on the
quarter-deck. Let that be as it may, I have still a favour to ask of
you!”

“A favour!—it is getting late.”

“Did I say ‘a favour?’ there is duty to be yet done.”

“I wait your orders.”

“It is necessary that we use great precaution for, as you know”——

“I wait your orders,” laconically repeated the other.

The Rover compressed his mouth, and a scornful smile struggled about
the nether lip; but it changed into a look half bland, half
authoritative, as he continued,—

“You will find two seamen, in a skiff, alongside the ship; the one is
white, and the other is black. These men you will have conducted into
the vessel—into one of the forward state-rooms—and you will have them
both thoroughly intoxicated.”

“It shall be done,” returned he who was called the General, rising, and
marching with long strides towards the door of the cabin.

“Pause a moment,” exclaimed the Rover; “what agent will you use?”

“Nightingale has the strongest head but one in the ship.”

“He is too far gone already. I sent him ashore, to look about for any
straggling seamen who might like our service; and I found him in a
tavern, with all the fastenings off his tongue, declaiming like a
lawyer who had taken a fee from both parties Besides, he had a quarrel
with one of these very men, and it is probable they would get to blows
in their cups.”

“I will do it myself. My night-cap is waiting for me; and it is only to
lace it a little tighter than common.”

The Rover seemed content with this assurance; for he expressed his
satisfaction with a familiar nod of the head. The soldier was now about
to depart, when he was again interrupted.

“One thing more, General; there is your captive.”—

“Shall I make him drunk too?”

“By no means. Let him be conducted hither.”

The General made an ejaculation of assent, and left the cabin. “It were
weak,” thought the Rover as he resumed his walk up and down the
apartment, “to trust too much to an ingenuous face and youthful
enthusiasm. I am deceived if the boy has not had reason to think
himself disgusted with the world, and ready to embark in any romantic
enterprise but, still, to be deceived might be fatal therefore will I
be prudent, even to excess of caution. He is tied in an extraordinary
manner to these two seamen I would I knew his history. But all that
will come in proper time. The men must remain as hostages for his own
return, and for his faith. If he prove false, why, they are seamen;—and
many men are expended in this wild service of ours! It is well
arranged; and no suspicion of any plot on our part will wound the
sensitive pride of the boy, if he be, as I would gladly think, a true
man.”

Such was, in a great manner, the train of thought in which the Rover
indulged, for many minutes, after his military companion had left him.
His lips moved; smiles, and dark shades of thought, in turn, chased
each other from his speaking countenance, which betrayed all the sudden
and violent changes that denote the workings of a busy spirit within.
While thus engrossed in mind, his step became more rapid, and, at
times, he gesticulated a little extravagantly when he found himself, in
a sudden turn, unexpectedly confronted by a form that seemed to rise on
his sight like a vision.

While most engaged in his own humours, two powerful seamen had,
unheeded, entered the cabin; and, after silently depositing a human
figure in a seat, they withdrew without speaking. It was before this
personage that the Rover now found himself. The gaze was mutual, long,
and uninterrupted by a syllable from either party. Surprise and
indecision held the Rover mute, while wonder and alarm appeared to have
literally frozen the faculties of the other. At length the former,
suffering a quaint and peculiar smile to gleam for a moment across his
countenance, said abruptly,—

“I welcome sir Hector Homespun!”

The eyes of the confounded tailor—for it was no other than that
garrulous acquaintance of the reader who had fallen into the toils of
the Rover—the eyes of the good-man rolled from right to left,
embracing, in their wanderings, the medley of elegance and warlike
preparation that they every where met never failing to return, from
each greedy look, to devour the figure that stood before him.

“I say, Welcome, sir Hector Homespun!” repeated the Rover.

“The Lord will be lenient to the sins of a miserable father of seven
small children!” ejaculated the tailor. “It is but little, valiant
Pirate, that can be gotten from a hard-working, upright tradesman, who
sits from the rising to the setting sun, bent over his labour.”

“These are debasing terms for chivalry, sir Hector,” interrupted the
Rover, laying his hand on the little riding whip, which had been thrown
carelessly on the cabin table, and, tapping the shoulder of the tailor
with the same, as though he were a sorcerer, and would disenchant the
other with the touch: “Cheer up, honest and loyal subject: Fortune has
at length ceased to frown: it is but a few hours since you complained
that no custom came to your shop from this vessel, and now are you in a
fair way to do the business of the whole ship.”

“Ah! honourable and magnanimous Rover,” rejoined Homespun, whose
fluency returned with his senses, “I am an impoverished and undone man.
My life has been one of weary and probationary hardships. Five bloody
and cruel wars”——

“Enough. I have said that Fortune was just beginning to smile. Clothes
are as necessary to gentlemen of our profession as to the parish
priest. You shall not baste a seam without your reward. Behold!” he
added, touching the spring of a secret drawer, which flew open, and
discovered a confused pile of gold, in which the coins of nearly every
Christian people were blended, “we are not without the means of paying
those who serve us faithfully.”

The sudden exhibition of a horde of wealth, which not only greatly
exceeded any thing of the kind he had ever before witnessed, but which
actually surpassed his limited imaginative powers, was not without its
effect on the sensitive feelings of the good-man After feasting on the
sight, for the few moments that his companion left the treasure exposed
to view, he turned to the envied possessor of so much gold, and
demanded,—the tones of increased confidence gradually stealing into his
voice, as the inward man felt additional motives of encouragement,—

“And what am I expected to perform, mighty Seaman, for my portion of
this wealth?”

“That which you daily perform on the land—to cut, to fashion, and to
sew. Perhaps, too, your talent at a masquerade dress may be taxed, from
time to time.”

“Ah! they are lawless and irreligious devices of the enemy, to lead men
into sin and worldly abominations But, worthy Mariner, there is my
disconsolate consort, Desire; though stricken in years, and given to
wordy strife, yet is she the lawful partner of my bosom, and the mother
of a numerous offspring.”

“She shall not want. This is an asylum for distressed husbands. Your
men, who have not force enough to command at home, come to my ship as
to a city of refuge. You will make the seventh who has found peace by
fleeing to this sanctuary. Their families are supported by ways best
known to ourselves, and all parties are content. This is not the least
of my benevolent acts.”

“It is praiseworthy and just, honourable Captain and I hope that Desire
and her offspring may not be forgotten. The labourer is surely worthy
of his hire and if, peradventure, I should toil in your behalf through
stress of compulsion, I hope the good and her young, may fatten on your
liberality.”

“You have my word; they shall not be neglected.”

“Perhaps, just Gentleman, if an allotment should be made in advance
from that stock of gold, the mind of my consort would be relieved, her
inquiries after my fate not so searching, and her spirit less troubled.
I have reason to understand the temper of Desire; and am well
identified, that, while the prospect of want is before her eyes, there
will be a clamour in Newport. Now that the Lord has graciously given me
the hopes of a respite, there can be no sin in wishing to enjoy it in
peace.”

Although the Rover was far from believing, with his captive, that the
tongue of Desire could disturb the harmony of his ship, he was in the
humour to be indulgent. Touching the spring again, he took a handful of
the gold, and, extending it towards Homespun demanded,—

“Will you take the bounty, and the oath? The money will then be your
own.”

“The Lord defend us from the evil one, and deliver us all from
temptation!” ejaculated the tailor: “Heroic Rover, I have a dread of
the law. Should any evil overcome you, in the shape of a King’s
cruiser, or a tempest cast you on the land, there might be danger in
being contaminated too closely with your crew. Any little services
which I may render, on compulsion, will be overlooked, I humbly hope
and I trust to your magnanimity, honest and honourable Commander, that
the same will not be forgotten in the division of your upright
earnings.”

“This is but the spirit of cabbaging, a little distorted muttered the
Rover, as he turned lightly on his heel, and tapped the gong, with an
impatience that sent the startling sound through every cranny of the
ship. Four or five heads were thrust in at the different doors of the
cabin, and the voice of one was heard, desiring to know the wishes of
their leader.

“Take him to his hammock,” was the quick, sudden order.

The good-man Homespun, who, from fright or policy, appeared to be
utterly unable to move, was quickly lifted from his seat, and conveyed
to the door which communicated with the quarter-deck.

“Pause,” he exclaimed to his unceremonious bearers, as they were about
to transport him to the place designated by their Captain; “I have one
word yet to say. Honest and loyal Rebel, though I do not accept your
service, neither do I refuse it in an unseemly and irreverent manner.
It is a sore temptation, and I feel it at my fingers’ ends. But a
covenant may be made between us, by which neither party shall be a
loser, and in which the law shall find no grounds of displeasure. I
would wish, mighty Commodore, to carry an honest name to my grave, and
I would also wish to live out the number of my days; for, after having
passed with so much credit, and unharmed, through five bloody and cruel
wars”——

“Away with him!” was the stern and startling interruption.

Homespun vanished, as though magic had been employed in transporting
him, and the Rover was again left to himself. His meditations were not
interrupted, for a long time, by human footstep or voice. That
breathing stillness, which unbending and stern discipline can alone
impart, pervaded the ship. A landsman, seated in the cabin, might have
fancied himself, although surrounded by a crew of lawless and violent
men, in the solitude of a deserted church, so suppressed, and deadened,
were even those sounds that were absolutely necessary. There were heard
at times, it is true, the high and harsh notes of some reveller who
appeared to break forth in the strains of a sea song, which, as they
issued from the depths of the vessel, and were not very musical in
themselves, broke on the silence like the first discordant strains of a
new practitioner on a bugle. But even these interruptions gradually
grew less frequent, and finally became inaudible. At length the Rover
heard a hand fumbling about the handle of the cabin door, and then his
military friend once more made his appearance.

There was that in the step, the countenance, and the whole air of the
General, which proclaimed that his recent service, if successful, had
not been achieved entirely without personal hazard. The Rover, who had
started from his seat the moment he saw who had entered, instantly
demanded his report.

“The white is so drunk, that he cannot lie down without holding on to
the mast; but the negro is either a cheat, or his head is made of
flint.”

“I hope you have not too easily abandoned the design.”

“I would as soon batter a mountain! my retreat was not made a minute
too soon.”

The Rover fastened his eyes on the General, for a moment, in order to
assure himself of the precise condition of his subaltern, ere he
replied,—

“It is well. We will now retire for the night.”

The other carefully dressed his tall person, and brought his face in
the direction of the little hatchway so often named. Then, by a sort of
desperate effort, he essayed to march to the spot, with his customary
upright mien and military step. As one or two erratic movements, and
crossings of the legs, were not commented on by his Captain, the worthy
martinet descended the stairs, as he believed, with sufficient dignity;
the moral man not being in the precise state which is the best adapted
to discover any little blunders that might be made by his physical
coadjutor. The Rover looked at his watch; and after allowing sufficient
time for the deliberate retreat of the General, he stepped lightly on
the stairs, and descended also.

The lower apartments of the vessel, though less striking in their
equipments than the upper cabin were arranged with great attention to
neatness and comfort. A few offices for the servants occupied the
extreme after-part of the ship, communicating by doors with the dining
apartment of the secondary officers; or, as it was called in technical
language, the “ward-room.” On either side of this, again, were the
state-rooms, an imposing name, by which the dormitories of those who
are entitled to the honours of the quarter-deck are ever called.
Forward of the ward-room, came the apartments of the minor officers;
and, immediately in front of them, the corps of the individual who was
called the General was lodged, forming, by their discipline, a barrier
between the more lawless seamen and their superiors.

There was little departure, in this disposition of the accommodations,
from the ordinary arrangements of vessels of war of the same
description and force as the “Rover;” but Wilder had not failed to
remark that the bulkheads which separated the cabins from the
birth-deck, or the part occupied by the crew, were far stouter than
common, and that a small howitzer was at hand, to be used, as a
physician might say, internally, should occasion require. The doors
were of extraordinary strength, and the means of barricadoing them
resembled more a preparation for battle, than the usual securities
against petty encroachments on private property. Muskets,
blunderbusses, pistols, sabres, half-pikes, &c., were fixed to the
beams and carlings, or were made to serve as ornaments against the
different bulkheads, in a profusion that plainly told they were there
as much for use as for show. In short, to the eye of a seaman, the
whole betrayed a state of things, in which the superiors felt that
their whole security, against the violence and insubordination of their
inferiors, depended on their influence and their ability to resist,
united; and that the former had not deemed it prudent to neglect any of
the precautions which might aid their comparatively less powerful
physical force.

In the principal of the lower apartments, or the ward-room, the Rover
found his newly enlisted lieutenant apparently busy in studying the
regulations of the service in which he had just embarked. Approaching
the corner in which the latter had seated himself, the former said, in
a frank, encouraging, and even confidential manner,——

“I hope you find our laws sufficiently firm, Mr Wilder.”

“Want of firmness is not their fault; if the same quality can always be
observed in administering them, it is well,” returned the other, rising
to salute his superior. “I have never found such rigid rules, even
in”——

“Even in what, sir?” demanded the Rover, perceiving that his companion
hesitated.

“I was about to say, ‘Even in his Majesty’s service,’” returned Wilder,
slightly colouring. “I know not whether it may be a fault, or a
recommendation, to have served in a King’s ship.”

“It is the latter; at least I, for one, should think it so, since I
learned my trade in the same service.”

“In what ship?” eagerly interrupted Wilder.

“In many,” was the cold reply. “But, speaking of rigid rules, you will
soon perceive, that, in a service where there are no courts on shore to
protect us, nor any sister-cruisers to look after each other’s welfare,
no small portion of power is necessarily vested in the Commander. You
find my authority a good deal extended.”

“A little unlimited,” said Wilder, with a smile that might have passed
for ironical.

“I hope you will have no occasion to say that it is arbitrarily
executed,” returned the Rover, without observing, or perhaps without
letting it appear that he observed, the expression of his companion’s
countenance. “But your hour is come, and you are now at liberty to
land.”

The young man thanked him, with a courteous inclination of the head,
and expressed his readiness to go. As they ascended the ladder into the
upper cabin, the Captain expressed his regret that the hour, and the
necessity of preserving the incognito of his ship, would not permit him
to send an officer of his rank ashore in the manner he could wish.

“But then there is the skiff, in which you came off, still alongside,
and your own two stout fellows will soon twitch you to yon point. A
propos of those two men, are they included in our arrangements?”

“They have never quitted me since my childhood, and would not wish to
do it now.”

“It is a singular tie that unites two men, so oddly constituted, to one
so different, by habits and education, from themselves,” returned the
Rover, glancing his eye keenly at the other, and withdrawing it the
instant he perceived his interest in the answer was observed.

“It is,” Wilder calmly replied; “but, as we are all seamen, the
difference is not so great as one would at first imagine. I will now
join them, and take an opportunity to let them, know that they are to
serve in future under your orders.”

The Rover suffered him to leave the cabin, following to the
quarter-deck, with a careless step, as if he had come abroad to breathe
the open air of the night.

The weather had not changed, but it still continued dark, though mild.
The same stillness as before reigned on the decks of the ship; and
nowhere, with a solitary exception, was a human form to be seen, amid
the collection of dark objects that rose on the sight, all of which
Wilder well understood to be necessary fixtures in the vessel. The
exception was the same individual who had first received our
adventurer, and who still paced the quarter-deck, wrapped, as before,
in a watch-coat. To this personage the youth now addressed himself,
announcing his intention temporarily to quit the vessel. His
communication was received with a respect that satisfied him his new
rank was already known, although, as it would seem, it was to be made
to succumb to the superior authority of the Rover.

“You know, sir, that no one, of whatever station, can leave the ship at
this hour, without an order from the Captain,” was the calm, but steady
reply.

“So I presume; but I have the order, and transmit it to you. I shall
land in my own boat.”

The other, seeing a figure within hearing, which he well knew to be
that of his Commander, waited an instant, to ascertain if what he heard
was true. Finding that no objection was made, nor any sign given, to
the contrary, he merely indicated the place where the other would find
his boat.

“The men have left it!” exclaimed Wilder, stepping back in surprise, as
he was about to descend the vessel’s side.

“Have the rascals run?”

“Sir, they have not run; neither are they rascals They are in this
ship, and must be found.”

The other waited, to witness the effect of these authoritative words,
too, on the individual, who still lingered in the shadow of a mast. As
no answer was, however, given from that quarter, he saw the necessity
of obedience. Intimating his intention to seek the men, he passed into
the forward parts of the vessel, leaving Wilder, as he thought, in the
sole possession of the quarter-deck. The latter was, however, soon
undeceived. The Rover, advancing carelessly to his side, made an
allusion to the condition of his vessel, in order to divert the
thoughts of his new lieutenant, who, by his hurried manner of pacing
the deck, he saw, was beginning to indulge in uneasy meditations.

“A charming sea-boat, Mr Wilder,” he continued, “and one that never
throws a drop of spray abaft her mainmast. She is just the craft a
seaman loves; easy on her rigging, and lively in a sea. I call her the
‘Dolphin,’ from the manner in which she cuts the water; and, perhaps,
because she has as many colours as that fish, you will say—Jack must
have a name for his ship, you know, and I dislike your cut-throat
appellations, your ‘Spit-fires’ and ‘Bloody-murders.’”

“You were fortunate in finding such a vessel. Was she built to your
orders?”

“Few ships, under six hundred tons, sail from these colonies, that are
not built to serve my purposes,” returned the Rover, with a smile; as
if he would cheer his companion, by displaying the mine of wealth that
was opening to him, through the new connexion he had made. “This vessel
was originally built for his Most Faithful Majesty; and, I believe, was
either intended as a present or a scourge to the Algerines; but—but she
has changed owners, as you see, and her fortune is a little altered;
though how, or why, is a trifle with which we will not, just now divert
ourselves. I have had her in port; she has undergone some improvements,
and is now altogether suited to a running trade.”

“You then venture, sometimes, inside the forts?”

“When you have leisure, my private journal may afford some interest,”
the other evasively replied. “I hope, Mr Wilder, you find this vessel
in such a state that a seaman need not blush for her?”

“Her beauty and neatness first caught my eye, and induced me to make
closer inquiries into her character.”

“You were quick in seeing that she was kept at a single anchor!”
returned the other, laughing. “But I never risk any thing without a
reason; not even the loss of my ground tackle. It would be no great
achievement, for so warm a battery as this I carry, to silence yonder
apology for a fort; but, in doing it, we might receive an unfortunate
hit, and therefore do I keep ready for an instant departure.”

“It must be a little awkward, to fight in a war where one cannot lower
his flag in any emergency!” said Wilder; more like one who mused, than
one who intended to express the opinion aloud.

“The bottom is always beneath us,” was the laconic answer. “But to you
I may say, that I am, on principle, tender on my spars. They are
examined daily, like the heels of a racer; for it often happens that
our valour must be well-tempered by discretion.”

“And how, and where, do you refit, when damaged in a gale, or in a
fight?”

“Hum! We contrive to refit, sir, and to take the sea in tolerable
condition.”

He stopped; and Wilder, perceiving that he was not yet deemed entitled
to entire confidence, continued silent. In this pause, the officer
returned, followed by the black alone. A few words served to explain
the condition of Fid. It was very apparent that the young man was not
only disappointed, but that he was deeply mortified. The frank and
ingenuous air, however, with which he turned to the Rover, to apologize
for the dereliction of his follower, satisfied the latter that he was
far from suspecting any improper agency in bringing about his awkward
condition.

“You know the character of seamen too well, sir,” he said, “to impute
this oversight to my poor fellow as a heinous fault. A better sailor
never lay on a yard, or stretched a ratlin, than Dick Fid; but I must
allow he has the quality of good fellowship to excess.”

“You are fortunate in having one man left you to pull the boat ashore,”
carelessly returned the other.

“I am more than equal to that little exertion myself nor do I like to
separate the men. With your permission, the black shall be birthed,
too, in the ship to-night.”

“As you please. Empty hammocks are not scarce among us, since the last
brush.”

Wilder then directed the negro to return to his messmate, and to watch
over him so long as he should be unable to look after himself. The
black, who was far from being as clear-headed as common, willingly
complied. The young man then took leave of his companions, and
descended into the skiff. As he pulled, with vigorous arms, away from
the dark ship, his eyes were cast upward, with a seaman’s pleasure, on
the-order and neatness of her gear, and thence they fell on the
frowning mass of the hull. A light-built, compact form was seen
standing on the heel of the bowsprit, apparently watching his
movements; and, notwithstanding the gloom of the clouded star-light, he
was enabled to detect, in the individual who took so much apparent
interest in his proceedings, the person of the Rover.




Chapter VIII.

“What is yon gentleman?”
Nurse. “The son and heir of old Tiberio.”
Juliet. “What’s he that follows there, that would not dance?”
Nurse. “Marry, I know not.”

_Romeo and Juliet._


The sun was just heaving up, out of the field of waters in which the
blue islands of Massachusetts lie, when the inhabitants of Newport were
seen opening their doors and windows, and preparing for the different
employments of the day, with the freshness and alacrity of people who
had wisely adhered to the natural allotments of time in seeking their
rests, or in pursuing their pleasures. The morning salutations passed
cheerfully from one to another, as each undid the slight fastenings of
his shop; and many a kind inquiry was made, and returned, after the
condition of a daughter’s fever, or the rheumatism of some aged
grandam. As the landlord of the “Foul Anchor” was so wary in protecting
the character of his house from any unjust imputations of unseemly
revelling, so was he among the foremost in opening his doors, to catch
any transient customer, who might feel the necessity of washing away
the damps of the past night, in some invigorating stomachic This
cordial was very generally taken in the British provinces, under the
various names of “bitters,” “juleps,” “morning-drams,” “fogmatics,”
&c., according as the situation of each district appeared to require
some particular preventive. The custom is getting a little into disuse,
it is true; but still it retains much of that sacred character which it
would seem is the concomitant of antiquity. It is not a little
extraordinary that this venerable and laudable practice, of washing
away the unwholesome impurities engendered in the human system, at a
time, when as it is entirely without any moral protector, it is left
exposed to the attacks of all the evils to which flesh is heir, should
subject the American to the witticisms of his European brother. We are
not among the least grateful to those foreign philanthropists who take
so deep an interest in our welfare as seldom to let any republican
foible pass, without applying to it, as it merits, the caustic
application of their purifying pens. We are, perhaps, the more sensible
of this generosity, because we have had so much occasion to witness,
that, so great is their zeal in behalf of our infant States, (robust,
and a little unmanageable perhaps, but still infant) they are wont, in
the warmth of their ardour, to reform Cis-atlantic sins, to overlook
not a few backslidings of their own. Numberless are the moral
missionaries that the mother country, for instance, has sent among us,
on these pious and benevolent errands. We can only regret that their
efforts have been crowned with so little success. It was our fortune to
be familiarly acquainted with one of these worthies, who never lost an
opportunity of declaiming, above all, against the infamy of the
particular practice to which we have just alluded. Indeed, so broad was
the ground he took, that he held it to be not only immoral, but, what
was far worse, ungenteel, to swallow any thing stronger than small
beer, before the hour allotted to dinner. After that important period,
it was not only permitted to assuage the previous mortifications of the
flesh, but, so liberal did he show himself in the orthodox indulgence,
that he was regularly carried to his bed at midnight, from which he as
regularly issued, in the course of the following morning, to discourse
again on the thousand deformities of premature drink. And here we would
take occasion to say, that, as to our own insignificant person, we
eschew the abomination altogether; and only regret that those of the
two nations, who find pleasure in the practice, could not come to some
amicable understanding as to the precise period, of the twenty-four
hours, when it is permitted to such Christian gentlemen as talk English
to get drunk. That the negotiators who framed the last treaty of amity
should have overlooked this important moral topic, is another evidence
that both parties were so tired of an unprofitable war as to patch up a
peace in a hurry. It is not too late to name a commission for this
purpose; and, in order that the question may be fairly treated on its
merits, we presume to suggest to the Executive the propriety of
nominating, as our commissioner, some confirmed advocate of the system
of “juleps.” It is believed our worthy and indulgent Mother can have no
difficulty in selecting a suitable opponent from the ranks of her
numerous and well-trained diplomatic corps.

With this manifestation of our personal liberality, united to so much
interest in the proper, and we hope final, disposition of this
important question, we may be permitted to resume the narrative,
without being set down as advocates for morning stimulants, or evening
intoxication; which is a very just division of the whole subject, as we
believe, from no very limited observation.

The landlord of the “Foul Anchor,” then, was early a-foot, to gain an
honest penny from any of the supporters of the former system who might
chance to select his bar for their morning sacrifices to Bacchus, in
preference to that of his neighbour, he who endeavoured to entice the
lieges, by exhibiting a red-faced man, in a scarlet coat, that was
called the “Head of George the Second.” It would seem that the
commendable activity of the alert publican was not to go without its
reward. The tide of custom set strongly, for the first half-hour,
towards the haven of his hospitable bar; nor did he appear entirely to
abandon the hopes of a further influx, even after the usual period of
such arrivals began to pass away. Finding, however, that his customers
were beginning to depart, on their several pursuits, he left his
station, and appeared at the outer door, with a hand in each pocket, as
though he found a secret pleasure in the merry jingling of their new
tenants. A stranger, who had not entered with the others, and who, of
course, had not partaken of the customary libations, was standing at a
little distance, with a hand thrust into the bosom of his vest, as if
he were chiefly occupied with his own reflections. This figure caught
the understanding eye of the publican who instantly conceived that no
man, who had had recourse to the proper morning stimulants, could wear
so meditative a face at that early period in the cares of the day, and
that consequently something was yet to be gained, by opening the path
of direct communication between them.

“A clean air this, friend, to brush away the damps of the night,” he
said, snuffing the really delicious and invigorating breathings of a
fine October morning. “It is such purifiers as this, that gives our
island its character, and makes it perhaps the very healthest as it is
universally admitted to be the beautifullest spot in creation.—A
stranger here, ’tis likely?”

“But quite lately arrived, sir,” was the reply.

“A sea-faring man, by your dress? and one in search of a ship, as I am
ready to qualify to;” continued the publican, chuckling, perhaps, at
his own penetration. “We have many such that passes hereaway; but
people mustn’t think, because Newport is so flourishing a town, that
births can always be had for asking. Have you tried your luck yet in
the Capital of the Bay Province?”

“I left Boston no later than the day before yesterday.”

“What, couldn’t the proud townsfolk find you a ship! Ay, they are a
mighty people at talking, and it isn’t often that they put their candle
under the bushel; and yet there are what I call good judges, who think
Narraganset Bay is in a fair way, shortly, to count as many sail as
Massachusetts. There, yonder, is a wholesome brig, that is going,
within the week, to turn her horses into rum and sugar; and here is a
ship that hauled into the stream no longer ago than yesterday sun-down.
That is a noble vessel and has cabins fit for a prince! She’ll be off
with the change of the wind; and I dare say a good hand wouldn’t go
a-begging aboard her just now. Then yonder is a slaver, off the fort,
if you like a cargo of wool-heads for your money.”

“And is it thought the ship in the inner harbour will sail with the
first wind?” demanded the stranger.

“It is downright. My wife is a full cousin to the wife of the
Collector’s clerk; and I have it straight that the papers are ready,
and that nothing but the wind detains them. I keep some short scores,
you know, friend, with the blue-jackets, and it behoves an honest man
to look to his interests in these hard times. Yes, there she lies; a
well-known ship, the ‘Royal Caroline.’ She makes a regular v’yage once
a year between the Provinces and Bristol, touching here, out and home,
to give us certain supplies, and to wood and water; and then she goes
home, or to the Carolinas, as the case may be.”

“Pray, sir, has she much of an armament?” continued the stranger, who
began to lose his thoughtful air, in the more evident interest he was
beginning to lake in the discourse.

“Yes, yes; she is not without a few bull-dogs, to bark in defence of
her own rights, and to say a word in support of his Majesty’s honour,
too; God bless him! Judy! you Jude!” he shouted, at the top of his
voice, to a negro girl, who was gathering kindling-wood among the chips
of a ship-yard, “scamper over to neighbour Homespun’s, and rattle away
at his bed-room windows: the man has overslept himself it is not common
to hear seven o’clock strike, and the thirsty tailor not appear for his
bitters.”

A short cessation took place in the dialogue, while the wench was
executing her master’s orders. The summons produced no other effect
than to draw a shrill reply from Desire, whose voice penetrated,
through the thin board coverings of the little dwelling as readily as
sound would be conveyed through a sieve. In another moment a window was
opened, and the worthy housewife thrust her disturbed visage into the
fresh air of the morning.

“What next! what next!” demanded the offended and, as she was fain to
believe, neglected wife, under the impression that it was her truant
husband, making his tardy return to his domestic allegiance, who had
thus presumed to disturb her slumbers. “Is it not enough that you have
eloped from my bed and board, for a long night, but you must dare to
break in on the natural rest of a whole family, seven blessed children,
without counting their mother! O Hector! Hector! an example are you
getting to be to the young and giddy, and a warning will you yet prove
to the unthoughtful!”

“Bring hither the black book,” said the publican to his wife, who had
been drawn to a window by the lamentations of Desire; “I think the
woman said something about starting on a journey between two days; and,
if such has been the philosophy of the good-man, it behoves all honest
people to look into their accounts. Ay, as I live, Keziah, you have let
the limping beggar get seventeen and sixpence into arrears, and that
for such trifles as morning-drams and night-caps!”

“You are wrathy, friend, without reason; the man has made a garment for
the boy at school, and found the”—

“Hush, good woman,” interrupted her husband returning the book, and
making a sign for her to retire; “I dare say it will all come round in
proper Time, and the less noise we make about the backslidings of a
neighbour, the less will be said of our own transgressions. A worthy
and hard-working mechanic, sir,” he continued, addressing the stranger
“but a man who could never get the sun to shine in at his windows,
though, Heaven knows, the glass is none too thick for such a blessing.”

“And do you imagine on evidence as slight as this we have seen, that
such a man has actually absconded?”

“Why, it is a calamity that has befallen his betters!” returned the
publican, interlocking his fingers across the rotundity of his person,
with an air of grave consideration. “We inn-keepers—who live, as it
were, in plain sight of every man’s secrets; for it is after a visit to
us that one is apt truly to open his heart—should know something of the
affairs of a neighbourhood. If the good-man Homespun could smooth down
the temper of his companion as easily as he lays a seam into its place,
the thing might not occur, but——Do you drink this morning, sir?”

“A drop of your best.”

“As I was saying,” continued the other, while he furnished his
customer, according to his desire, “if a tailor’s goose would take the
wrinkles out of the ruffled temper of a woman, as it does out of the
cloth; and then, if, after it had done this task, a man might eat it,
as he would yonder bird hanging behind my bar—Perhaps you will have
occasion to make your dinner with us, too, sir?”

“I cannot say I shall not,” returned the stranger, paying for the dram
he had barely tasted; “it greatly depends on the result of my inquiries
concerning the different vessels in the port.”

“Then would I, though perfectly disinterested, as you know, sir,
recommend you to make this house your home, while you sojourn in the
town. It is the resort of most of the sea-faring men; and I may say
this much of myself, without conceit—No man can tell you more of what
you want to know, than the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor.’”

“You advise an application to the Commander of this vessel, in the
stream, for a birth: Will she sail so soon as you have named?”

“With the first wind. I know the whole history of the ship, from the
day they laid the blocks for her keel to the minute when she let her
anchor go where you now see her. The great Southern Heiress, General
Grayson’s fine daughter, is to be a passenger she, and her overlooker,
Government-lady, I believe they call her—a Mrs Wyllys—are waiting for
the signal, up here, at the residence of Madam de Lacey; she that is
the relict of the Rear-Admiral of that name, who is full-sister to the
General; and, therefore, an aunt to the young lady, according to my
reckoning. Many people think the two fortunes will go together; in
which case, he will be not only a lucky man, but a rich one, who gets
Miss Getty Gray son for a wife.”

The stranger, who had maintained rather an indifferent manner during
the close of the foregoing dialogue appeared now disposed to enter into
it, with a degree of interest suited to the sex and condition of the
present subject of their discourse. After waiting to catch the last
syllable that the publican chose to expend his breath on, he demanded,
a little abruptly,—

“And you say the house near us, on the rising ground, is the residence
of Mrs de Lacey?”

“If I did, I know nothing of the matter. By ‘up here,’ I mean half a
mile off. It is a place fit for a lady of her quality, and none of your
elbowy dwellings like these crowded about us. One may easily tell the
house, by its pretty blinds and its shades. I’ll engage there are no
such shades, in all Europe, as them very trees that stand before the
door of Madam de Lacey.”

“It is very probable,” muttered the stranger, who, not appearing quite
as sensitive in his provincial admiration as the publican, had already
relapsed into his former musing air. Instead of pushing the discourse,
he suddenly turned the subject, by making some common-place remark; and
then, repeating the probability of his being obliged to return, he
walked deliberately away, taking the direction of the residence of Mrs
de Lacey. The observing publican would, probably, have found sufficient
matter for observation, in this abrupt termination of the interview,
had not Desire, at that precise moment, broken out of her habitation,
and diverted his attention, by the peculiarly piquant manner in which
she delineated the character of her delinquent husband.

The reader has probably, ere this, suspected that the individual who
had conferred with the publican, as a stranger, was not unknown to
himself. It was, in truth, no other than Wilder. But, in the completion
of his own secret purposes, the young mariner left the wordy war in his
rear; and, turning up the gentle ascent, against the side of which the
town is built, he proceeded towards the suburbs.

It was not difficult to distinguish the house he sought, among a dozen
other similar retreats, by its “shades,” as the innkeeper, in
conformity to a provincial use of the word, had termed a few really
noble elms that grew in the little court before its door. In order,
however, to assure himself that he was right, he confirmed his surmises
by actual inquiry and then continued thoughtfully on his path. The
morning had, by this time, fairly opened with every appearance of
another of those fine bland, autumnal days for which the climate is, or
ought to be, so distinguished. The little air there was, came from the
south, fanning the face of our adventurer as he occasionally paused, in
his ascent, to gaze at the different vessels in the harbour, like a
mild breeze in June. In short, it was just such a time as one, who is
fond of strolling in the fields, is apt to seize on with rapture, and
which a seaman sets down as a day lost in his reckoning.

Wilder was first drawn from his musings by the sound of a dialogue that
came from persons who were evidently approaching. There was one voice,
in particular, that caused his blood to thrill, he knew not why, and
which appeared unaccountably, even to himself, to set in motion every
latent faculty of his system. Profiting, by the formation of the
ground, he sprang, unseen, up a little bank, and, approaching an angle
in a low wall, he found himself in the immediate proximity of the
speakers.

The wall enclosed the garden and pleasure-grounds of a mansion, that he
now perceived was the residence of Mrs de Lacey. A rustic summer-house
which, in the proper season, had been nearly buried in leaves and
flowers, stood at no great distance from the road. By its elevation and
position, it commanded a view of the town, the harbour, the isles of
Massachusetts to the east, those of the Providence Plantations to the
west, and, to the south, an illimitable expanse of ocean. As it had now
lost its leafy covering, there was no difficulty in looking directly
into its centre, through the rude pillars which supported its little
dome. Here Wilder discovered precisely the very party to whose
conversation he had been a listener the previous day, while caged, with
the Rover, in the loft of the ruin. Though the Admiral’s widow and Mrs
Wyllys were most in advance, evidently addressing some one who was,
like himself, in the public road, the quick eye of the young sailor
soon detected the more enticing person of the blooming Gertrude, in the
background. His observations were, however, interrupted by a reply from
the individual who as yet was unseen. Directed by the voice, Wilder was
next enabled to perceive the person of a man in a green old age, who,
seated on a stone by the way side, appeared to be resting his weary
limbs, while he answered to some interrogations from the summer-house.
Though his head was white, and the hand, which grasped a long
walking-staff, sometimes trembled, as its owner sought additional
support from its assistance, there was that in the costume, the manner,
and the voice of the speaker, which furnished sufficient evidence of
his having once been a veteran of the sea.

“Lord! your Ladyship, Ma’am,” he said, in tones that were getting
tremulous, even while they retained the deep characteristic intonations
of his profession, “we old sea-dogs never stop to look into an almanac,
to see which way the wind will come after the next thaw, before we put
to sea. It is enough for us, that the sailing orders are aboard, and
that the Captain has taken leave of his Lady.”

“Ah! the very words of the poor lamented Admiral!” exclaimed Mrs de
Lacey, who evidently found great satisfaction in pursuing the discourse
with this superannuated mariner. “And then you are of opinion, honest
friend, that, when a ship is ready, she should sail, whether the wind
is”——

“Here is another follower of the sea, opportunely come to lend us his
advice,” interrupted Gertrude, with a hurried air, as if to divert the
attention of her aunt from something very like a dogmatical termination
of an argument that had just occurred between her and Mrs Wyllys;
“perhaps to serve as an umpire.”

“True,” said the latter. “Pray, what think you of the weather to-day,
sir? would it be profitable to sail in such a time, or not?”

The young mariner reluctantly withdrew his eyes from the blushing
Gertrude, who, in her eagerness to point him out, had advanced to the
front, and was now shrinking back, timidly, to the centre of the
building again, like one who already repented of her temerity. He then
fastened his look on her who put the question; and so long and riveted
was his gaze, that she saw fit to repeat it, believing that what she
had first said was not properly understood.

“There is little faith to be put in the weather, Madam,” was the
dilatory reply. “A man has followed the sea to but little purpose who
is tardy in making that discovery.”

There was something so sweet and gentle, at the same time that it was
manly, in the voice of Wilder, that the ladies, by a common impulse,
seemed struck with its peculiarities. The neatness of his attire,
which, while it was strictly professional, was worn with an air of
smartness, and even of gentility, that rendered it difficult to suppose
that he was not entitled to lay claim to a higher station in society
than that in which he actually appeared, added to this impression.
Bending her head, with a manner that was intended to be polite, a
little more perhaps in self-respect than out of consideration to the
other, as if in deference to the equivocal character of his appearance,
Mrs de Lacey resumed the discourse.

“These ladies,” she said, “are about to embark in yonder ship, for the
province of Carolina, and we were consulting concerning the quarter in
which the wind will probably blow next. But, in such a vessel, it
cannot matter much, I should think, sir, whether the wind were fair or
foul.”

“I think not,” was the reply. “She looks to me like a ship that will
not do much, let the wind be as it may.”

“She has the reputation of being a very fast sailer.—Reputation! we
know she is such, having come from home to the Colonies in the
incredibly short passage of seven weeks! But seamen have their
favourites and prejudices, I believe, like us poor mortals ashore. You
will therefore excuse me, if I ask this honest veteran for an opinion
on this particular point also. What do you imagine, friend, to be the
sailing qualities of yonder ship—she with the peculiarly high
top-gallant-booms, and such conspicuous round-tops?”

The lip of Wilder curled, and a smile struggled with the gravity of his
countenance; but he continued silent. On the other hand, the old
mariner arose, and appeared to examine the ship, like one who perfectly
comprehended the technical language of the Admiral’s widow.

“The ship in the inner harbour, your Ladyship,” he answered, when his
examination was finished, “which is, I suppose, the vessel that Madam
means, is just such a ship as does a sailor’s eye good to look on. A
gallant and a safe boat she is, as I will swear; and as to sailing,
though she may not be altogether a witch, yet is she a fast craft, or
I’m no judge of blue water, or of those that live on it.”

“Here is at once a difference of opinion!” exclaimed Mrs de Lacey. “I
am glad, however, you pronounce her safe; for, although seamen love a
fast-sailing vessel, these ladies will not like her the less for the
security. I presume, sir, you will not dispute her being _safe_.”

“The very quality I should most deny,” was the laconic answer of
Wilder.

“It is remarkable! This is a veteran seaman, sir, and he appears to
think differently.”

“He may have seen more, in his time, than myself Madam; but I doubt
whether he can, just now see as well. This is something of a distance
to discover the merits or demerits of a ship: I have been higher.”

“Then you really think there is danger to be apprehended sir?” demanded
the soft voice of Gertrude whose fears had gotten the better of her
diffidence.

“I do. Had I mother, or sister,” touching his hat, and bowing to his
fair interrogator, as he uttered the latter word with much emphasis, “I
would hesitate to let her embark in that ship. On my honour Ladies, I
do assure you, that I think this very vessel in more danger than any
ship which has left, or probably will leave, a port in the Provinces
this autumn.”

“This is extraordinary!” observed Mrs Wyllys. “It is not the character
we have received of the vessel, which has been greatly exaggerated, or
she is entitled to be considered as uncommonly convenient and safe. May
I ask, sir, on what circumstances you have founded this opinion?”

“They are sufficiently plain. She is too lean in the harping, and too
full in the counter, to steer. Then, she in as wall-sided as a church,
and stows too much above the water-line. Besides this, she carries no
head-sail, but all the press upon her will be aft, which will jam her
into the wind, and, more than likely, throw her aback. The day will
come when that ship will go down stern foremost.”

His auditors listened to this opinion, which Wilder delivered in an
oracular and very decided manner, with that sort of secret faith, and
humble dependence, which the uninstructed are so apt to lend to the
initiated in the mysteries of any imposing profession. Neither of them
had certainly a very clear perception of his meaning; but there were,
apparently, danger and death in his very words Mrs de Lacey felt it
incumbent on her peculiar advantages, however, to manifest how well she
comprehended the subject.

“These are certainly very serious evils!” she exclaimed. “It is quite
unaccountable that my agent should have neglected to mention them. Is
there any other particular quality, sir, that strikes your eye at this
distance, and which you deem alarming?”

“Too many. You observe that her top-gallant masts are fidded abaft;
none of her lofty sails set flying; and then, Madam, she has depended
on bobstays and gammonings for the security of that very important part
of a vessel, the bowsprit.”

“Too true! too true!” said Mrs de Lacey, in a sort of professional
horror. “These things had escaped me; but I see them all, now they are
mentioned. Such neglect is highly culpable; more especially to rely on
bobstays and gammonings for the security of a bowsprit! Really, Mrs
Wyllys, I can never consent that my niece should embark in such a
vessel.”

The calm, penetrating eye of Wyllys had been riveted on the countenance
of Wilder while he was speaking, and she now turned it, with
undisturbed serenity, on the Admiral’s widow, to reply.

“Perhaps the danger has been a little magnified,” she observed. “Let us
inquire of this other seaman what he thinks on these several
points.—And do you see all these serious dangers to be apprehended,
friend, in trusting ourselves, at this season of the year, in a passage
to the Carolinas, aboard of yonder ship?”

“Lord, Madam!” said the gray-headed mariner, with a chuckling laugh,
“these are new-fashioned faults and difficulties, if they be faults and
difficulties at all! In my time, such matters were never heard of; and
I confess I am so stupid as not to understand the half the young
gentleman has been saying.”

“It is some time, I fancy, old man, since you were last at sea,” Wilder
coolly observed.

“Some five or six years since the last time, and fifty since the
first,” was the answer.

“Then you do not see the same causes for apprehension?” Mrs Wyllys once
more demanded.

“Old and worn out as I am, Lady, if her Captain will give me a birth
aboard her, I will thank him for the same as a favour.”

“Misery seeks any relief,” said Mrs de Lacey, in an under tone, and
bestowing on her companions a significant glance. “I incline to the
opinion of the younger seaman; for he supports it with substantial,
professional reasons.”

Mrs Wyllys suspended her questions, just as long as complaisance to the
last speaker seemed to require and then she resumed them as follows,
addressing her next inquiry to Wilder.

“And how do you explain this difference in judgment, between two men
who ought both to be so well qualified to decide right?”

“I believe there is a well-known proverb which will answer that
question,” returned the young man, smiling: “But some allowance must be
made for the improvements in ships; and, perhaps, some little deference
to the stations we have respectively filled on board them.”

“Both very true. Still, one would think the changes of half a dozen
years cannot be so very considerable, in a profession that is so
exceedingly ancient.”

“Your pardon, Madam. They require constant practice to know them. Now,
I dare say that yonder worthy old tar is ignorant of the manner in
which a ship, when pressed by her canvas, is made to ‘cut the waves
with her taffrail.’”

“Impossible!” cried the Admiral’s widow; “the youngest and the meanest
mariner must have been struck with the beauty of such a spectacle.”

“Yes, yes,” returned the old tar, who wore the air of an offended man,
and who, probably, had he been ignorant of any part of his art, was not
just then in the temper to confess it; “many is the proud ship that I
have seen doing the very same; and, as the lady says, a grand and
comely sight it is!”

Wilder appeared confounded. He bit his lip, like one who was
over-reached either by excessive ignorance or exceeding cunning; but
the self-complacency of Mrs de Lacey spared him the necessity of an
immediate reply.

“It would have been an extraordinary circumstance truly,” she said,
“that a man should have grown white-headed on the seas, and never have
been struck with so noble a spectacle. But then, my honest tar, you
appear to be wrong in overlooking the striking faults in yonder ship,
which this, a—a—this gentleman has just, and so properly, named.”

“I do not call them faults, your Ladyship. Such is the way my late
brave and excellent Commander always had his own ship rigged; and I am
bold to say that a better seaman, or a more honest man, never served in
his Majesty’s fleet.”

“And you have served the King! How was your beloved Commander named?”

“How should he be! By us, who knew him well, he was called
Fair-weather: for it was always smooth water, and prosperous times,
under his orders; though, on shore, he was known as the gallant and
victorious Rear-Admiral de Lacey.”

“And did my late revered and skilful husband cause his ships to be
rigged in this manner?” said the widow, with a tremour in her voice,
that bespoke how much, and how truly, she was overcome by surprise and
gratified pride.

The aged tar lifted his bending frame from the stone, and bowed low, as
he answered,—“If I have the honour of seeing my Admiral’s Lady, it will
prove a joyful sight to my old eyes. Sixteen years did I serve in his
own ship, and five more in the same squadron. I dare say your Ladyship
may have heard him speak of the captain of his main-top, Bob Bunt.”

“I dare say—I dare say—He loved to talk of those who served him
faithfully.”

“Ay, God bless him, and make his memory glorious! He was a kind
officer, and one that never forgot a friend, let it be that his duty
kept him on a yard or in the cabin. He was the sailor’s friend, that
very same Admiral!”

“This is a grateful man,” said Mrs de Lacey, wiping her eyes, “and I
dare say a competent judge of a vessel. And are you quite sure, worthy
friend, that my late revered husband had all his ships arranged like
the one of which we have been talking?”

“Very sure, Madam; for, with my own hands, did I assist to rig them.”

“Even to the bobstays?”

“And the gammonings, my Lady. Were the Admiral alive, and here, he
would call yon ‘a safe and well-fitted ship,’ as I am ready to swear.”

Mrs de Lacey turned, with an air of great dignity and entire decision,
to Wilder, as she continued,—“I have, then, made a small mistake in
memory which is not surprising, when one recollects, that he who taught
me so much of the profession is no longer here to continue his lessons.
We are much obliged to you, sir, for your opinion; but we must think
that you have over-rated the danger.”

“On my honour, Madam,” interrupted Wilder laying his hand on his heart,
and speaking with singular emphasis, “I am sincere in what I say. I do
affirm, that I believe there will be great danger in embarking in
yonder ship; and I call Heaven to witness, that, in so saying, I am
actuated by no malice to her Commander, her owners, nor any connected
with her.”

“We dare say, sir, you are very sincere: We only think you a little in
error,” returned the Admiral’s widow, with a commiserating, and what
she intended for a condescending, smile. “We are your debtors for your
good intentions, at least. Come, worthy veteran, we must not part here.
You will gain admission by knocking at my door; and we shall talk
further of these matters.”

Then, bowing to Wilder, she led the way up the garden, followed by all
her companions. The step of Mrs de Lacey was proud, like the tread of
one conscious of all her advantages; while that of Wyllys was slow, as
if she were buried in thought. Gertrude kept close to the side of the
latter, with her face hid beneath the shade of a gipsy hat. Wilder
fancied that he could discover the stolen and anxious glance that she
threw back towards one who had excited a decided emotion in her
sensitive bosom though it was a feeling no more attractive than alarm.
He lingered until they were lost amid the shrubbery. Then, turning to
pour out his disappointment on his brother tar, he found that the old
man had made such good use of his time, as to be entering the gate,
most probably felicitating himself on the prospect of reaping the
reward of his recent adulation.




Chapter IX.

“He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall.”

_Shakespeare._


Wilder retired from the field like a defeated man. Accident, or, as he
was willing to term it, the sycophancy of the old mariner, had
counteracted his own little artifice; and he was now left without the
remotest chance of being again favoured with such another opportunity
of effecting his purpose. We shall not, at this period of the
narrative, enter into a detail of the feelings and policy which induced
our adventurer to plot against the apparent interests of those with
whom he had so recently associated himself; it is enough, for our
present object, that the facts themselves should be distinctly set
before the reader.

The return of the disappointed young sailor, towards the town, was
moody and slow. More than once he stopped short in the descent, and
fastened his eyes, for minutes together, on the different vessels in
the harbour. But, in these frequent-halts, no evidence of the
particular interest he took in any one of the ships escaped him.
Perhaps his gaze at the Southern trader was longer, and more earnest,
than at any other; though his eye, at times, wandered curiously, and
even anxiously, over every craft that lay within the shelter of the
haven.

The customary hour for exertion had now arrived, and the sounds of
labour were beginning to be heard, issuing from every quarter of the
place. The songs of the mariners were rising on the calm of the morning
with their peculiar, long-drawn intonations. The ship in the inner
harbour was among the first to furnish this proof of the industry of
her people, and of her approaching departure. It was only as these
movements caught his eye, that Wilder seemed to be thoroughly awakened
from his abstraction, and to pursue his observations with an undivided
mind. He saw the seamen ascend the rigging, in that lazy manner which
is so strongly contrasted by their activity in moments of need; and
here and there a human form was showing itself on the black and
ponderous yards. In a few moments, the fore-topsail fell, from its
compact compass on the yard, into graceful and careless festoons. This,
the attentive Wilder well knew, was, among all trading vessels, the
signal of sailing. In a few more minutes, the lower angles of this
important sail were drawn to the, extremities of the corresponding spar
beneath; and then the heavy yard was seen slowly ascending the mast,
dragging after it the opening folds of the sail, until the latter was
tightened at all its edges, and displayed itself in one broad,
snow-white sheet of canvas. Against this wide surface the light
currents of air fell, and as often receded; the sail bellying and
collapsing in a manner to show that, as yet, they were powerless. At
this point the preparations appeared suspended, as if the mariners,
having thus invited the breeze, were awaiting to see if their
invocation was likely to be attended with success.

It was perhaps but a natural transition for him, who so closely
observed these indications of departure in the ship so often named, to
turn his eyes on the vessel which lay without the fort, in order to
witness the effect so manifest a signal had produced in her, also. But
the closest and the keenest scrutiny could have detected no sign of any
bond of interest between the two. While the firmer was making the
movements just described, the latter lay at her anchors without the
smallest proof that man existed within the mass of her black and
inanimate hull. So quiet and motionless did she seem, that one, who had
never been instructed in the matter, might readily have believed her a
fixture in the sea, some symmetrical and enormous excrescence thrown up
by the waves, with its mazes of lines and pointed fingers, or one of
those fantastic monsters that are believed to exist in the bottom of
the ocean, darkened by the fogs and tempests of ages. But, to the
understanding eye of Wilder, she exhibited a very different spectacle.
He easily saw, through all this apparently drowsy quietude, those signs
of readiness which a seaman only might discover. The cable, instead of
stretching in a long declining line towards the water was “short,” or
nearly “up and down,” as it is equally termed in technical language,
just “scope” enough being allowed out-board to resist the power of the
lively tide, which acted on the deep keel of the vessel. All her boats
were in the water, and so disposed and prepared, as to convince him
they were in a state to be employed in towing, in the shortest possible
time. Not a sail, nor a yard, was out of its place, undergoing those
repairs and examinations which the mariner is wont to make so often,
when lying within the security of a suitable haven, nor was there a
single rope wanting, amid the hundreds which interlaced the blue sky
that formed the background of the picture, that might be necessary, in
bringing every art of facilitating motion into instant use. In short,
the vessel, while seeming least prepared, was most in a condition to
move, or, if necessary, to resort to her means of offence and defence.
The boarding-nettings, it is true, were triced to the rigging, as on
the previous day; but a sufficient apology was to be found for this act
of extreme caution, in the war, which exposed her to attacks from the
light French cruisers, that so often ranged, from the islands of the
West-Indies, along the whole coast of the Continent, and in the
position the ship had taken, without the ordinary defences of the
harbour. In this state, the vessel, to one who knew her real character,
appeared like some beast of prey, or venomous reptile, that lay in an
assumed lethargy, to delude the unconscious victim within the limits of
its leap, or nigh enough to receive the deadly blow of its fangs.

Wilder shook his head, in a manner which said plainly enough how well
he understood this treacherous tranquillity, and continued his walk
towards the town, with the same deliberate step as before. He had
whiled away many minutes unconsciously, and would probably have lost
the reckoning of as many more, had not his attention been suddenly
diverted by a slight touch on the shoulder. Starting at this unexpected
diversion, he turned, and saw, that, in his dilatory progress, he had
been overtaken by the seaman whom he had last seen in that very society
in which he would have given so much to have been included himself.

“Your young limbs should carry you ahead, Master,” said the latter,
when he had succeeded in attracting the attention of Wilder, “like a
‘Mudian going with a clean full, and yet I have fore-reached upon you
with my old legs, in such a manner as to bring us again within hail.”

“Perhaps you enjoy the extraordinary advantage of ‘cutting the waves
with your taffrail,’” returned Wilder, with a sneer. “There can be no
accounting for the head-way one makes, when sailing in that remarkable
manner.”

“I see, brother, you are offended that I followed your motions, though,
in so doing, I did no more than obey a signal of your own setting. Did
you expect an old sea-dog like me, who has stood his watch so long in a
flag-ship, to confess ignorance in any matter that of right belongs to
blue water? How the devil was I to know that there is not some sort of
craft, among the thousands that are getting into fashion, which sails
best stern foremost? They say a ship is modelled from a fish; and, if
such be the case, it is only to make one after the fashion of a crab,
or an oyster, to have the very thing you named.”

“It is well, old man. You have had your reward, I suppose, in a
handsome present from the Admiral’s widow, and you may now lie-by for a
season, without caring much as to the manner in which they build their
ships in future. Pray, do you intend to shape your course much further
down this hill?”

“Until I get to the bottom.”

“I am glad of it, friend, for it is my especial intention to go up it
again. As we say at sea, when our conversation is ended, ‘A good time
to you!’”

The old seaman laughed, in his chuckling manner, when he saw the young
man turn abruptly on his heel, and begin to retrace the very ground
along which he had just before descended.

“Ah! you have never sailed with a Rear-Admiral,” he said, as he
continued his own course in the former direction, picking his way with
a care suited to his age and infirmities. “No, there is no getting the
finish, even at sea, without a cruise or two under a flag, and that at
the mizzen, too!”

“Intolerable old hypocrite!” muttered Wilder between his teeth. “The
rascal has seen better days, and is now perverting his knowledge to
juggle a foolish woman, to his profit. I am well quit of the knave,
who, I dare say, has adopted lying for his trade, now labour is
unproductive. I will go back The coast is quite clear, and who can say
what may happen next?”

Most of the foregoing paragraph was actually uttered in the suppressed
manner already described, while the rest was merely meditated, which,
considering the fact that our adventurer had no auditor, was quite as
well as if he had spoken it through a trumpet. The expectation thus
vaguely expressed, however, was not likely to be soon realized. Wilder
sauntered up the hill, endeavouring to assume the unconcerned air of an
idler, if by chance his return should excite attention; but, though he
lingered long in open view of the windows of Mrs de Lacey’s villa, he
was not able to catch another glimpse of its tenants. There were very
evident symptoms of the approaching journey, in the trunks and packages
that left the building for the town, and in the hurried and busy manner
of the few servants that he occasionally saw; but it would seem that
the principal personages of the establishment had withdrawn into the
secret recesses of the building, probably for the very natural purpose
of confidential communion and affectionate leave-taking. He was
turning, vexed and disappointed, from his anxious and fruitless watch,
when he once more heard female voices on the inner side of the low wall
against which he had been leaning. The sounds approached; nor was it
long before his quick ears again recognized the musical voice of
Gertrude.

“It is tormenting ourselves, without sufficient reason, my dear Madam,”
she said, as the speakers drew sufficiently nigh to be distinctly
overheard, “to allow any thing that may have fallen from such a—such an
individual, to make the slightest impression.”

“I feel the justice of what you say, my love,” returned the mournful
voice of her governess, “and yet am I so weak as to be unable entirely
to shake off a sort of superstitious feeling on this subject. Gertrude,
would you not wish to see that youth again?”

“Me, Ma’am!” exclaimed her élève, in a sort of alarm. “Why should you,
or I, wish to see an utter stranger again? and one so low—not low
perhaps—but one who is surely not altogether a very suitable companion
for”—

“Well-born ladies, you would say. And why do you imagine the young man
to be so much our inferior?”

Wilder thought there was a melody in the intonations of the youthful
voice of the maiden, which in some measure excused the personality, as
she answered.

“I am certainly not so fastidious in my notions of birth and station as
aunt de Lacey,” she said, laughing; “but I should forget some of your
own instructions, dear Mrs Wyllys, did I not feel that education and
manners make a sensible difference in the opinions and characters of
all us poor mortals.”

“Very true, my child. But I confess I saw or heard nothing that induces
me to believe the young man, of whom we are speaking, either uneducated
or vulgar. On the contrary, his language and pronunciation were those
of a gentleman, and his air was quite suited to his utterance. He had
the frank and simple manner of his profession; but you are not now to
learn that youths of the first families in the provinces, or even in
the kingdom, are often placed in the service of the marine.”

“But they are officers, dear Madam: this—this individual wore the dress
of a common mariner.”

“Not altogether. It was finer in its quality, and more tasteful in its
fashion, than is customary. I have known Admirals do the same in their
moments of relaxation. Sailors of condition often love to carry about
them the testimonials of their profession, without any of the trappings
of their rank.”

“You then think he was an officer—perhaps in the King’s service?”

“He might well have been so, though the fact, that there is no cruiser
in the port, would seem to contradict it. But it was not so trifling a
circumstance that awakened the unaccountable interest that I feel.
Gertrude, my love, it was my fortune to have been much with seamen in
early life. I seldom see one of that age, and of that spirited and
manly mien, without feeling emotion. But I tire you; let us talk of
other things.”

“Not in the least, dear Madam,” Gertrude hurriedly interrupted. “Since
you think the stranger a gentleman, there can be no harm—that is, it is
not quite so improper, I believe—to speak of him. Can there then be the
danger he would make us think in trusting ourselves in a ship of which
we have so good a report?”

“There was a strange, I had almost said wild, admixture of irony and
concern in his manner, that is inexplicable! He certainly uttered
nonsense part of the time: but, then, he did not appear to do it
without a serious object. Gertrude, you are not as familiar with
nautical expressions as myself: and perhaps you are ignorant that your
good aunt, in her admiration of a profession that she has certainly a
right to love, sometimes makes”——

“I know it—I know it; at least I often think so,” the other
interrupted, in a manner which plainly manifested that she found no
pleasure in dwelling on the disagreeable subject. “It was exceedingly
presuming Madam, in a stranger, however, to amuse himself, if he did
it, with so amiable and so trivial a weakness, if indeed weakness it
be.”

“It was,” Mrs Wyllys steadily continued—she having, very evidently,
such other matter in her thoughts as to be a little inattentive to the
sensitive feelings of her companion;—“and yet he did not appear to me
like one of those empty minds that find a pleasure in exposing the
follies of others. You may remember, Gertrude, that yesterday, while at
the ruin, Mrs de Lacey made some remarks expressive of her admiration
of a ship under sail.”

“Yes, yes, I remember them,” said the niece, a little impatiently.

“One of her terms was particularly incorrect, as I happened to know
from my own familiarity with the language of sailors.”

“I thought as much, by the expression of your eye,” returned Gertrude;
“but”—

“Listen, my love. It certainly was not remarkable that a lady should
make a trifling error in the use of so peculiar a language, but it is
singular that a seaman himself should commit the same fault in
precisely the same words. This did the youth of whom we are speaking;
and, what is no less surprising the old man assented to the same, just
as if they had been correctly uttered.”

“Perhaps,” said Gertrude, in a low tone, “they may have heard, that
attachment to this description of conversation is a foible of Mrs de
Lacey. I am sure, after this, dear Madam, you cannot any longer
consider the stranger a gentleman!”

“I should think no more about it, love, were it not for a feeling I can
neither account for nor define. I would I could again see him!”

A slight exclamation from her companion interrupted her words; and, the
next instant, the subject of her thoughts leaped the wall, apparently
in quest of the rattan that had fallen at the feet of Gertrude, and
occasioned her alarm. After apologizing for his intrusion on the
private grounds of Mrs de Lacey, and recovering his lost property,
Wilder was slowly preparing to retire, as if nothing had happened.
There was a softness and delicacy in his manner during the first moment
of his appearance, which was probably intended to convince the younger
of the ladies that he was not entirely without some claims to the title
she had so recently denied him, and which was certainly not without its
effect. The countenance of Mrs Wyllys was pale, and her lip quivered,
though the steadiness of her voice proved it was not with alarm, as she
hastily said,—“Remain a moment, sir, if need does not require your
presence elsewhere. There is something so remarkable in this meeting,
that I could wish to improve it.”

Wilder bowed, and again faced the ladies, whom he had just been about
to quit, like one who felt he had no right to intrude a moment longer
than had been necessary to recover that which had been lost by his
pretended awkwardness. When Mrs Wyllys found that her wish was so
unexpectedly realized, she hesitated as to the manner in which she
should next proceed.

“I have been thus bold, sir,” she said, in some embarrassment, “on
account of the opinion you so lately expressed concerning the vessel
which now lies ready to put to sea, the instant, she is favoured with a
wind.”

“‘The Royal Caroline?’” Wilder carelessly replied.

“That is her name, I believe.”

“I hope, Madam, that nothing which I have said,” he hastily continued,
“will have an effect to prejudice you against the ship. I will pledge
myself that she is made of excellent materials, and then I have not the
least doubt but she is very ably commanded.”

“And yet have you not hesitated to say, that you consider a passage in
this very vessel more dangerous than one in any other ship that will
probably leave a port of the Provinces in many months to come.”

“I did,” answered Wilder, with a manner not to be mistaken.

“Will you explain your reasons for this opinion?”

“If I remember rightly, I gave them to the lady whom I had the honour
to see an hour ago.”

“That individual, sir, is no longer here,” was the grave reply of
Wyllys; “neither is she to trust her person in the vessel. This young
lady and myself, with our attendants, will be the only passengers.”

“I understood it so,” returned Wilder, keeping his thoughtful gaze
riveted on the speaking countenance of the deeply interested Gertrude.

“And, now that there is no apprehension of any mistake, may I ask you
to repeat the reasons why you think there will be danger in embarking
in the ‘Royal Caroline?’”

Wilder started, and even had the grace to colour, as he met the calm
and attentive look of Mrs Wyllys’s searching, but placid eye.

“You would not have me repeat, Madam,” he stammered, “what I have
already said on the subject?”

“I would not, sir; once will suffice for such an explanation; still am
I persuaded you have other reasons for your words.”

“It is exceedingly difficult for a seaman to speak of ships in any
other than technical language, which must be the next thing to being
unintelligible to one of your sex and condition. You have never been at
sea, Madam?”

“Very often, sir.”

“Then may I hope, possibly, to make myself understood. You must be
conscious, Madam, that no small part of the safety of a ship depends on
the very material point of keeping her right side uppermost sailors
call it ‘making her stand up.’ Now I need not say, I am quite sure, to
a lady of your intelligence, that, if the ‘Caroline’ fall on her beam
there will be imminent hazard to all on board.”

“Nothing can be clearer; but would not the same risk be incurred in any
other vessel?”

“Without doubt, if any other vessel should trip. But I have pursued my
profession for many years, without meeting with such a misfortune, but
once. Then, the fastenings of the bowsprit”—

“Are good as ever came from the hand of rigger,” said a voice behind
them.

The whole party turned; and beheld, at a little distance, the old
seaman already introduced, mounted on some object on the other side of
the wall, against which he was very coolly leaning, and whence he
overlooked the whole of the interior of the grounds.

“I have been at the water side to look at the boat, at the wish of
Madam de Lacey, the widow of my late noble Commander and Admiral; and,
let other men think as they may, I am ready to swear that the ‘Royal
Caroline’ has as well secured a bowsprit as any ship that carries the
British flag! Ay, nor is that all I will say in her favour; she is
throughout neatly and lightly sparred, and has no more of a wall-side
than the walls of yonder church tumble-home. I am an old man, and my
reckoning has got to the last leaf of the log-book; therefore it is
little interest that I have, or can have, in this brig or that
schooner, but this much will I say, which is, that it is just as
wicked, and as little likely to be forgiven, to speak scandal of a
wholesome and stout ship, as it is to talk amiss of mortal Christian.”

The old man spoke with energy, and a great show of honest indignation,
which did not fail to make an impression on the ladies, at the same
time that it brought certain ungrateful admonitions to the conscience
of the understanding Wilder.

“You perceive, sir,” said Mrs Wyllys, after waiting in vain for the
reply of the young seaman, “that it is very possible for two men, of
equal advantages, to disagree on a professional point. Which am I to
believe?”

“Whichever your own excellent sense should tell you is most likely to
be correct. I repeat, and in a sincerity to whose truth I call Heaven
to witness, that no mother or sister of mine should, with my consent,
embark in the ‘Caroline.’”

“This is incomprehensible!” said Mrs Wyllys, turning to Gertrude, and
speaking only for her ear. “My reason tells me we have been trifled
with by this young man; and yet are his protestations so earnest, and
apparently so sincere, that I cannot shake off the impression they have
made. To which of the two, my love, do you feel most inclined to yield
your credence?”

“You know how very ignorant I am, dear Madam, of all these things,”
said Gertrude, dropping her eyes to the faded sprig she was plucking;
“but, to me, that old wretch has a very presuming and vicious look.”

“You then think the younger most entitled to our belief?”

“Why not; since you, also, think he is a gentleman?”

“I know not that his superior situation in life entitles him to greater
credit. Men often obtain such advantages only to abuse them.—I am
afraid, sir,” continued Mrs Wyllys, turning to the expecting Wilder,
“that unless you see fit to be more frank, we shall be compelled to
refuse you our faith, and still persevere in our intention to profit,
by the opportunity of the ‘Royal Caroline,’ to get to the Carolinas.”

“From the bottom of my heart, Madam, do I regret the determination.”

“It may still be in your power to change it, by being explicit.”

Wilder appeared to muse, and once or twice his lips moved, as if he
were about to speak. Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude awaited his intentions
with intense interest; but, after a long and seemingly hesitating
pause, he disappointed both, by saying,—

“I am sorry that I have not the ability to make myself better
understood. It can only be the fault of my dullness; for I again affirm
that the danger is as apparent to my eyes as the sun at noon day.”

“Then we must continue blind, sir,” returned Mrs Wyllys, with a cold
salute. “I thank you for your good and kind intentions, but you cannot
blame us for not consenting to follow advice which is buried in so much
obscurity. Although in our own grounds, we shall be pardoned the
rudeness of leaving you. The hour appointed for our departure has now
arrived.”

Wilder returned the grave bow of Mrs Wyllys with one quite as formal as
her own; though he bent with greater grace, and with more cordiality,
to the deep but hurried curtesy of Gertrude Grayson. He remained in the
precise spot, however, in which they left him, until he saw them enter
the villa; and he even fancied he could catch the anxious expression of
another timid glance which the latter threw in his direction, as her
light form appeared to float from before his sight. Placing one hand on
the wall, the young sailor then leaped into the highway. As his feet
struck the ground, the slight shock seemed to awake him from his
abstraction, and he became conscious that he stood within six feet of
the old mariner, who had now twice stepped so rudely between him and
the object he had so much at heart, The latter did not allow him time
to give utterance to his disappointment; for he was the first himself
to speak.

“Come, brother,” he said, in friendly, confidential tones, and shaking
his head, like one who wished to show to his companion that he was
aware of the deception he had attempted to practise; “come, brother,
you have stood far enough on this tack, and it is time to try another.
Ay, I’ve been young myself in my time, and I know what a hard matter it
is to give the devil a wide birth, when there is fun to be found in
sailing in his company: But old age brings us to our reckonings; and,
when the life is getting on short allowance with a poor fellow, he
begins to think of being sparing of his tricks, just as water is saved
in a ship, when the calms set in, after it has been spilt about decks
like rain, for weeks and months on end. Thought comes with gray hairs,
and no one is the worse for providing a little of it among his other
small stores.”

“I had hoped, when I gave you the bottom of the hill, and took the top
myself,” returned Wilder, without even deigning to look at his
disagreeable companion, “that we had parted company for ever. As you
seem, however, to prefer the high ground, I leave you to enjoy it at
your leisure; I shall descend into the town.”

The old man shuffled after him, with a gait that rendered it difficult
for Wilder, who was by this time in a fast walk, to outstrip him,
without resorting to the undignified expedient of an actual flight.
Vexed alike with himself and his tormentor, he was tempted to offer
some violence to the latter; and then, recalled to his reccollection by
the dangerous impulse he moderated his pace, and continued his route
with a calm determination to be superior to any emotions that such a
pitiful object could excite.

“You were going under such a press of sail, young Master,” said the
stubborn old mariner, who still kept a pace or two in his rear, “that I
had to set every thing to hold way with you; but you now seem to be
getting reasonable, and we may as well lighten the passage by a little
profitable talk. You had nearly made the oldish lady believe the good
ship ‘Royal Caroline’ was the flying Dutchman!”

“And why did you see fit to undeceive her?” bluntly demanded Wilder.

“Would you have a man, who has followed blue water fifty years,
scandalize wood and iron after so wild a manner? The character of a
ship is as dear to an old sea-dog, as the character of his wife or his
sweetheart.”

“Hark ye, friend; you live, I suppose, like other people, by eating and
drinking?”

“A little of the first, and a good deal of the last,” returned the
other, with a chuckle.

“And you get both, like most seaman, by hard work, great risk, and the
severest exposure?”

“Hum! ‘Making our money like horses, and spending it like asses!’—that
is said to be the way with us all.”

“Now, then, have you an opportunity of making some with less labour;
you may spend it to suit your own fancy. Will you engage in my service
for a few hours, with this for your bounty, and as much more for wages,
provided you deal honestly?”

The old man stretched out a hand, and took the guinea which Wilder had
showed over his shoulder, without appearing to deem it at all necessary
to face his recruit.

“It’s no sham!” said the latter, stopping to ring the metal on a stone.

“’Tis gold, as pure as ever came from the Mint.”

The other very coolly pocketed the coin; and then, with a certain
hardened and decided way, as if he were now ready for any thing, he
demanded,—

“What hen-roost am I to rob for this?”

“You are to do no such pitiful act; you have only to perform a little
of that which, I fancy, you are no stranger to: Can you keep a false
log?”

“Ay; and swear to it, on occasion. I understand you. You are tired of
twisting the truth like a new laid rope, and you wish to turn the job
over to me.”

“Something so. You must unsay all you have said concerning yonder ship;
and, as you have had running enough to get on the weather-side of Mrs
de Lacey, you must improve your advantage, by making matters a little
worse than I have represented them to be. Tell me, that I may judge of
your qualifications, did you in truth, ever sail with the worthy
Rear-Admiral?”

“As I am an honest and religious Christian, I never heard of the honest
old man before yesterday. Oh! you may trust me in these matters! I am
no likely to spoil a history for want of facts.”

“I think you will do. Now listen to my plan.”—

“Stop, worthy messmate,” interrupted the other: “‘Stones can hear,’
they say on shore: we sailors know that the pumps have ears on board a
ship; have you ever seen such a place as the ‘Foul Anchor’ tavern, in
this town?”

“I have been there.”

“I hope you like it well enough to go again. Here we will part. You
shall haul on the wind, being the lightest sailer, and make a stretch
or two among these houses, until you are well to windward of yonder
church. You will then have plain sailing down upon hearty Joe Joram’s,
where is to be found as snug an anchorage, for an honest trader, as at
any inn in the Colonies. I will keep away down this hill, and,
considering the difference in our rate of sailing, we shall not be long
after one another in port.”

“And what is to be gained by so much manoeuvring? Can you listen to
nothing which is not steeped in rum?”

“You offend me by the word. You shall see what it is to send a sober
messenger on your errands, when the time comes. But, suppose we are
seen speaking to each other on the highway—why, as you are in such low
repute just now, I shall lose my character with the ladies altogether.”

“There may be reason in that. Hasten, then to meet me; for, as they
spoke of embarking soon, there is not a minute to lose.”

“No fear of their breaking ground so suddenly,” returned the old man,
holding the palm of his hand above his head to catch the wind. “There
is not yet air enough to cool the burning cheeks of that young beauty;
and, depend on it, the signal will not be given to them until the sea
breeze is fairly come in.”

Wilder waved his hand, and stepped lightly along the road the other had
indicated to him, ruminating on the figure which the fresh and youthful
charms of Gertrude had extorted from one even as old and as coarse as
his new ally. His companion followed his person for a moment, with an
amused look, and an ironical cast of the eye; and then he also
quickened his pace, in order to reach the place of rendezvous in
sufficient season.




Chapter X.

“Forewarn him, that he use no scurrilous words.”

_Winter’s Tale._


As Wilder approached the “Foul Anchor,” he beheld every symptom of some
powerful excitement existing within the bosom of the hitherto peaceful
town. More than half the women, and perhaps one fourth of all the men,
within a reasonable proximity to that well known inn, were assembled
before its door, listening to one of the former sex, who declaimed in
tones so shrill and penetrating as not to leave the proprietors of the
curious and attentive countenances, in the outer circle of the crowd,
the smallest rational ground of complaint on the score of impartiality.
Our adventurer hesitated, with the sudden consciousness of one but
newly embarked in such enterprises as that in which he had so recently
enlisted, when he first saw these signs of commotion; nor did he
determine to proceed until he caught a glimpse of his aged confederate,
elbowing his way through the mass of bodies, with a perseverance and
energy that promised to bring him right speedily into the very presence
of her who uttered such loud and piercing plaints. Encouraged by this
example, the young man advanced, but was content to take his position,
for a moment, in a situation that left him entire command of his limbs
and, consequently, in a condition to make a timely retreat, should the
latter measure prove at all expedient.

“I call on you, Earthly Potter, and you, Preserved Green, and you,
Faithful Wanton,” cried Desire, as he came within hearing, pausing to
catch a morsel of breath, before she proceeded in her affecting appeal
to the neighbourhood; “and you too, Upright Crook, and you too, Relent
Flint, and you, Wealthy Poor, to be witnesses and testimonials in my
behalf. You, and all and each of you, can qualify if need should be,
that I have ever been a slaving and loving consort of this man who has
deserted me in my age, leaving so many of his own children on my hands,
to feed and to rear, besides”—

“What certainty is it,” interrupted the landlord of the “Foul Anchor”
most inopportunely, “that the good-man has absconded? It was a merry
day the one that is just gone, and it is quite in reason to believe
your husband was, like some others I can name—a thing I shall not be so
unwise as to do—a little of what I call how-come-ye-so, and that his
nap holds on longer than common. I’ll engage we shall all see the
honest tailor creeping out of some of the barns shortly, as fresh and
as ready for his bitters as if he had not wet his throat with cold
water since the last time of general rej’icing.”

A low but pretty general laugh followed this effort of tavern wit,
though it failed in exciting even a smile on the disturbed visage of
Desire, which, by its doleful outline, appeared to have taken leave of
all its risible properties for ever.

“Not he, not he,” exclaimed the disconsolate consort of the good-man;
“he has not the heart to get himself courageous, in loyal drinking, on
such an occasion as a merry-making on account of his Majesty’s glory;
he was a man altogether for work; and it is chiefly for his hard labour
that I have reason to complain. After being so long used to rely on his
toil, it is a sore cross to a dependant woman to be thrown suddenly and
altogether on herself for support. But I’ll be revenged on him, if
there’s law to be found in Rhode Island, or in the Providence
Plantations! Let him dare to keep his pitiful image out of my sight the
lawful time, and then, when he returns, he shall find himself, as many
a vagabond has been before him, without wife, as he will be without
house to lay his graceless head in.”[1] Then, catching a glimpse of the
inquiring face of the old seaman, who by this time had worked his way
to her very side, she abruptly added, “Here is a stranger in the place,
and one who has lately arrived! Did you meet a straggling runaway,
friend, in your journey hither?”

 [1] It would seem, from this declaration, that certain legal
 antiquarians, who have contended that the community is indebted to
 Desire for the unceremonious manner of clipping the nuptial knot,
 which is so well known to exist, even to this hour, in the community
 of which she was a member, are entirely in the wrong. It evidently did
 not take its rise in her example, since she clearly alludes to it, as
 a means before resorted to by me injured innocents of her own sex.


“I had too much trouble in navigating my old hulk on dry land, to log
the name and rate of every craft I fell in with,” returned the other,
with infinite composure; “and yet, now you speak of such a thing, I do
remember to have come within hail of a poor fellow, just about the
beginning of the morning-watch somewhere hereaway, up in the bushes
between this town and the bit of a ferry that carries one on to the
main.”

“What sort of a man was he?” demanded five or six anxious voices, in a
breath; among which the tones of Desire, however, maintained their
supremacy rising above those of all the others, like the strains of a
first-rate artist flourishing a quaver above the more modest thrills of
the rest of the troupe.

“What sort of a man! Why a fellow with his arms rigged athwart ship,
and his legs stepped like those of all other Christians, to be sure:
but, now you speak of it, I remember that he had a bit of a sheep-shank
in one of his legs, and rolled a good deal as he went ahead.”

“It was he!” added the same chorus of voices. Five or six of the
speakers instantly stole slyly out of the throng, with the commendable
intention of hurrying after the delinquent, in order to secure the
payment of certain small balances of account, in which the unhappy and
much traduced good-man stood indebted to the several parties. Had we
leisure to record the manner in which these praiseworthy efforts, to
save an honest penny, were conducted the reader might find much subject
of amusement in the secret diligence with which each worthy tradesman
endeavoured to outwit his neighbour, on the occasion, as well as in the
cunning subterfuges which were adopted to veil their real designs, when
all met at the ferry, deceived and disappointed in their object As
Desire, however, had neither legal demand on, nor hope of favour from,
her truant husband, she was content to pursue, on the spot, such
further inquiries in behalf of the fugitive as she saw fit to make. It
is possible the pleasures of freedom, in the shape of the contemplated
divorce, were already floating before her active mind, with the
soothing perspective of second nuptials, backed by the influence of
such another picture as might be drawn from the recollections of her
first love; the whole having a manifest tendency to pacify her awakened
spirit, and to give a certain portion of directness and energy to her
subsequent interrogatories.

“Had he a thieving look?” she demanded, without attending to the manner
in which she was so suddenly deserted by all those who had just
expressed the strongest sympathy in her loss. “Was he a man that had
the air of a sneaking runaway?”

“As for his head-piece, I will not engage to give very true account,”
returned the old mariner though he had the look of one who had been
kept a good deal of his time, in the lee scuppers. If should give an
opinion, the poor devil has had too much”—

“Idle time, you would say; yes, yes; it has been his misfortune to be
out of work a good deal latterly and wickedness has got into his head,
for want of something better to think of. Too much”—

“Wife,” interrupted the old man, emphatically. Another general, and far
less equivocal laugh, at the expense of Desire, succeeded this blunt
declaration Nothing intimidated by such a manifest assent to the
opinion of the hardy seaman, the undaunted virago resumed,—

“Ah! you little know the suffering and forbearance I have endured with
the man in so many long years. Had the fellow you met the look of one
who had left an injured woman behind him?”

“I can’t say there was any thing about him which said, in so many
words, that the woman he had left at her moorings was more or less
injured;” returned the tar, with commendable discrimination, “but there
was enough about him to show, that, however and wherever he may have
stowed his wife, if wife she was, he had not seen fit to leave all her
outfit at home. The man had plenty of female toggery around his neck; I
suppose he found it more agreeable than her arms.”

“What!” exclaimed Desire, looking aghast; “has he dared to rob me! What
had he of mine? not the gold beads!”

“I’ll not swear they were no sham.”

“The villain!” continued the enraged termagant, catching her breath
like a person that had just been submerged in water longer than is
agreeable to human nature, and forcing her way through the crowd, with
such vigour as soon to be in a situation to fly to her secret hordes,
in order to ascertain the extent of her misfortune; “the sacrilegious
villain! to rob the wife of his bosom, the mother of his own children,
and”—

“Well, well,” again interrupted the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor,’ with
his unseasonable voice, “I never before heard the good-man suspected of
roguery, though the neighbourhood was ever backward in calling him
chicken-hearted.”

The old seaman looked the publican full in the face, with much meaning
in his eye, as he answered,—

“If the honest tailor never robbed any but that virago, there would be
no great thieving sin to be laid to his account; for every bead he had
about him wouldn’t serve to pay his ferryage. I could carry all the
gold on his neck in my eye, and see none the worse for its company. But
it is a shame to stop the entrance into a licensed tavern, with such a
mob, as if it were an embargoed port; and so I have sent the woman
after her valuables, and all the idlers, as you see, in her wake.”

Joe Joram gazed on the speaker like a man enthralled by some mysterious
charm; neither answering nor altering the direction of his eye, for
near a minute. Then, suddenly breaking out in a deep and powerful
laugh, as if he were not backward in enjoying the artifice, which
certainly had produced the effect of removing the crowd from his own
door to that of the absent tailor, he flourished his arm in the way of
greeting, and exclaimed,—“Welcome, tarry Bob; welcome, old boy,
welcome! From what cloud have you fallen? and before what wind have you
been running, that Newport is again your harbour?”

“Too many questions to be answered in an open roadstead, friend Joram;
and altogether too dry a subject for a husky conversation. When I am
birthed in one of your inner cabins, with a mug of flip and a kid of
good Rhode Island beef within grappling distance, why, as many
questions as you choose, and as many answers, you know, as suits my
appetite.”

“And who’s to pay the piper, honest Bob? whose ship’s purser will pay
your check now?” continued the publican, showing the old sailor in,
however, with a readiness that seemed to contradict the doubt,
expressed by his words, of any reward for such extraordinary civility.

“Who?” interrupted the other, displaying the money so lately received
from Wilder, in such a manner that it might be seen by the few
by-standers who remained, as though he would himself furnish a
sufficient apology for the distinguished manner in which he was
received; “who but this gentleman? I can boast of being backed by the
countenance of his Sacred Majesty himself, God bless him!”

“God bless him!” echoed several of the loyal lieges; and that too in a
place which has since heard such very different cries, and where the
words would now excite nearly as much surprise, though far less alarm,
than an earthquake.

“God bless him!” repeated Joram, opening the door of an inner room, and
pointing the way to his customer, “and all that are favored with his
countenance! Walk in, old Bob, and you shall soon grapple with half an
ox.”

Wilder, who had approached the outer door of the tavern as the mob
receded, witnessed the retreat of the two worthies into the recesses of
the house, and immediately entered the bar-room himself. While
deliberating on the manner in which he should arrive at a communication
with his new confederate, without attracting too much attention to so
odd an association, the landlord returned in person to relieve him.
After casting a hasty glance around the apartment, his look settled on
our adventurer, whom he approached in a manner half-doubting,
half-decided.

“What success, sir, in looking for a ship?” he demanded now
recognizing, for the first time, the stranger with whom he had before
held converse that morning. “More hands than places to employ them?”

“I am not sure it will so prove. In my walk on the hill, I met an old
seaman, who”—

“Hum!” interrupted the publican, with an intelligible though stolen,
sign to follow. “You will find it more convenient, sir, to take your
breakfast in another room.” Wilder followed his conductor, who left the
public apartment by a different door from that by which he had led his
other guest into the interior of the house, wondering at the air of
mystery that the innkeeper saw fit to assume on the occasion. After
leading him by a circuitous passage. The latter showed Wilder, in
profound silence, up a private stair-way, into the very attic of the
building. Here he rapped lightly at a door, and was bid to enter, by a
voice that caused our adventurer to start by its deepness and severity.
On finding him self, however, in a low and confined room, he saw no
other occupant than the seaman who had just been greeted by the
publican as an old acquaintance and by a name to which he might, by his
attire, well lay claim to be entitled—that of tarry Bob. While Wilder
was staring about him, a good deal surprised at the situation in which
he was placed, the landlord retired, and he found himself alone with
his confederate. The latter was already engaged in discussing the
fragment of the ox, just mentioned, and in quaffing of some liquid that
seemed equally adapted to his taste, although sufficient time had not
certainly been allowed to prepare the beverage he had seen fit to
order. Without allowing his visiter leisure for much further
reflection, the old mariner made a motion to him to take the only
vacant chair in the room, while he continued his employment on the
surloin with as much assiduity as though no interruption had taken
place.

“Honest Joe Joram always makes a friend of his butcher,” he said, after
ending a draught that threatened to drain the mug to the bottom. “There
is such a flavour about his beef, that one might mistake it for the fin
of a halibut. You have been in foreign parts, shipmate, or I may call
you ‘messmate,’ since we are both anchored nigh the same kid—but you
have doubtless been in foreign countries?”

“Often; I should else be but a miserable seaman.”

“Then, tell me frankly, have you ever been in the kingdom that can
furnish such rations—fish, flesh, fowl, and fruits—as this very noble
land of America, in which we are now both moored? and in which I
suppose we both of us were born?”

“It would be carrying the love of home a little too far, to believe in
such universal superiority,” returned Wilder, willing to divert the
conversation from his real object, until he had time to arrange his
ideas, and assure himself he had no other auditor but his visible
companion. “It is generally admitted that England excels us in all
these articles.”

“By whom? by your know-nothings and bold talkers. But I, a man who has
seen the four quarters of the earth, and no small part of the water
besides, give the lie to such empty boasters. We are colonies, friend,
we are colonies; and it is as bold in a colony to tell the mother that
it has the advantage, in this or that particular, as it would be in a
foremast Jack to tell his officer he was wrong, though he knew it to be
true. I am but a poor man, Mr—By what name may I call your Honour?”

“Me! my name?—Harris.”

“I am but a poor man, Mr Harris; but I have had charge of a watch in my
time, old and rusty as I seem, nor have I spent so many long nights on
deck without keeping thoughts at work, though I may not have overhaul’d
as much philosophy, in so doing, as a paid parish priest, or a fee’d
lawyer. Let me tell you, it is a disheartening thing to be nothing but
a dweller in a colony. It keeps down the pride and spirit of a man, and
lends a hand in making him what his masters would be glad to have him.
I shall say nothing of fruits, and meats, and other eatables, that come
from the land of which both you and I have heard and know too much,
unless it be to point to yonder sun, and then to ask the question,
whether you think King George has the power to make it shine on the bit
of an island where he lives, as it shines here in his broad provinces
of America?”

“Certainly not: and yet you know that every one allows that the
productions of England are so much superior”—

“Ay, ay; a colony always sails under the lee of its mother. Talk does
it all, friend Harris. Talk, talk, talk; a man can talk himself into a
fever, or set a ship’s company by the ears. He can talk a cherry into a
peach, or a flounder into a whale. Now here is the whole of this long
coast of America, and all her rivers, and lakes, and brooks, swarming
with such treasures as any man might fatten on, and yet his Majesty’s
servants, who come among us, talk of their turbots, and their sole, and
their carp, as if the Lord had only made such fish, and the devil had
let the others slip through his fingers, without asking leave.”

Wilder turned, and fastened a look of surprise on the old man, who
continued to eat, however, as if he had uttered nothing but what might
be considered as a matter of course opinion.

“You are more attached to your birth-place than loyal, friend,” said
the young mariner, a little austerely.

“I am not fish-loyal at least. What the Lord made, one may speak of, I
hope, without offence. As to the Government, that is a rope twisted by
the hands of man, and”—

“And what?” demanded Wilder, perceiving that the other hesitated.

“Hum! Why, I fancy man will undo his own work, when he can find nothing
better to busy himself in. No harm in saying that either, I hope?”

“So much, that I must call your attention to the business that has
brought us together. You have not go soon forgotten the earnest-money
you received?”

The old sailor shoved the dish from before him, and, folding his arms,
he looked his companion full in the eye, as he calmly answered,—

“When I am fairly enlisted in a service, I am a man to be counted on. I
hope you sail under the same colors, friend Harris?”

“It would be dishonest to be otherwise. There is one thing you will
excuse, before I proceed to detail my plans and wishes: I must take
occasion to examine this closet, in order to be sure that we are
actually alone.”

“You will find little there except the toggery of some of honest Joe’s
female gender. As the door is not fastened with any extraordinary care,
you have only to look for yourself, since seeing is believing.”

Wilder did not seem disposed to wait for this permission; he opened the
door, even while the other was speaking, and, finding that the closet
actually contained little else than the articles named by his
companion, he turned away, like a man who was disappointed.

“Were you alone when I entered?” he demanded, after a thoughtful pause
of a moment.

“Honest Joram, and yourself.”

“But no one else?”

“None that I saw,” returned the other, with a manner that betrayed a
slight uneasiness; “if you think otherwise, let us overhaul the room.
Should my hand fall on a listener, the salute will not be light.”

“Hold—answer me one question; who bade me enter?”

Tarry Bob, who had arisen with a good deal of alacrity, now reflected
in his turn for an instant, and then he closed his musing, by indulging
in a low laugh.

“Ah! I see that you have got your ideas a little jammed. A man cannot
talk the same, with a small portion of ox in his mouth, as though his
tongue had as much sea-room as a ship four-and-twenty hours out.”

“Then, you spoke?”

“I’ll swear to that much,” returned Bob, resuming his seat like one who
had settled the whole affair to his entire satisfaction; “and now,
friend Harris, if you are ready to lay bare your mind, I’m just as
ready to look at it.”

Wilder did not appear to be quite as well content with the explanation
as his companion, but he drew a chair, and prepared to open his
subject.

“I am not to tell you, friend, after what you have heard and seen, that
I have no very strong desire that the lady with whom we have both
spoken this morning, and her companion, should, sail in the ‘Royal
Caroline.’ I suppose it is enough for our purposes that you should know
the fact; the reason why I prefer they should remain where they are,
can be of no moment as to the duty you are to undertake.”

“You need not tell an old seaman how to gather in the slack of a
running idea!” cried Bob, chuckling and winking at his companion in a
way that displeased the latter by its familiarity; “I have not lived
fifty years on blue water, to mistake it for the skies.”

“You then fancy, sir, that my motive is no secret to you?”

“It needs no spy-glass to see, that, while the old people say, ‘Go,’
the young people would like to stay where they are.”

“You do both of the young people much injustice then; for, until
yesterday, I never laid eyes on the person you mean.”

“Ah! I see how it is; the owners of the ‘Caroline’ have not been so
civil as they ought, and you are paying them a small debt of thanks!”

“That is possibly a means of retaliation that might suit your taste,”
said Wilder, gravely; “but which is not much in accordance with mine.
The whole of the parties are utter strangers to me.”

“Hum! Then I suppose you belong to the vessel in the outer harbour;
and, though you don’t hate your enemies, you love your friends. We must
contrive the means to coax the ladies to take passage in the slaver.”

“God forbid!”

“God forbid! Now I think, friend Harris, you set up the backstays of
your conscience a little too taught. Though I cannot, and do not, agree
with you in all you have said concerning the ‘Royal Caroline,’ I see no
reason to doubt but we shall have but one mind about the other vessel.
I call her a wholesome looking and well proportioned craft, and one
that a King might sail in with comfort.”

“I deny it not; still I like her not.”

“Well, I am glad of that; and, since the matter is fairly before us,
master Harris, I have a word or two to say concerning that very ship. I
am an old sea-dog, and one not easily blinded in matters of the trade.
Do you not find something, that is not in character for an honest
trader, in the manner in which they have laid that vessel at her
anchors, without the fort, and the sleepy look she bears, at the same
time that any one may see she is not built to catch oysters, or to
carry cattle to the islands?”

“As you have said, I think her a wholesome and a tight-built ship. Of
what evil practice, however, do you suspect her?—perhaps she robs the
revenue?”

“Hum! I am not sure it would be pleasant to smuggle in such a vessel,
though your contraband is a merry trade, after all. She has a pretty
battery, as well as one can see from this distance.”

“I dare say her owners are not tired of her yet and would gladly keep
her from falling into the hands of the French.”

“Well, well, I may be wrong; but, unless sight is going with my years,
all is not as it would be on board that slaver, provided her papers
were true, and she had the lawful name to her letters of marque. What
think you, honest Joe, in this matter?”

Wilder turned, impatiently, and found that the landlord had entered the
room, with a step so as to have escaped his attention, which had been
drawn to his companion with a force that the reader will readily
comprehend. The air of surprise, with which Joram regarded the speaker,
was certainly not affected; for the question was repeated, and in still
more definite terms, before he saw fit to reply.

“I ask you, honest Joe, if you think the slaver, in the outer harbour
of this port, a true man?”

“You come across one, Bob, in your bold way, with such startling
questions,” returned the publican, casting his eyes obliquely around
him, as if he would fain make sure of the character of the audience to
which he spoke, “such stirring opinions, that really I am often
non-plushed to know how to get the ideas together, to make a saving
answer.”

“It is droll enough, truly, to see the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor’
dumb-foundered,” returned the old man, with perfect composure in mien
and eye. “I ask you, if you do not suspect something wrong about that
slaver?”

“Wrong! Good heavens, mister Robert, recollect what you are saying. I
would not, for the custom of his Majesty’s Lord High Admiral, have any
discouraging words be uttered in my house against the reputation of any
virtuous and fair-dealing slavers! The Lord protect me from blacking
the character of any honest subject of the King!”

“Do you see nothing wrong, worthy and tender Joram, about the ship in
the outer harbour?” repeated mister Robert, without moving eye, limb,
or muscle.

“Well, since you press me so hard for an opinion and seeing that you
are a customer who pays freely for what he orders, I will say, that, if
there is any thing unreasonable, or even illegal, in the deportment of
the gentlemen”—

“You sail so nigh the wind, friend Joram,” coolly interrupted the old
man, “as to keep every thing shaking. Just bethink you of a plain
answer: Have you seen any thing wrong about the slaver?”

“Nothing, on my conscience, then,” said the publican, puffing not
unlike a cetaceous fish that had come to the surface to breathe; “as I
am an unworthy sinner, sitting under the preaching of good and faithful
Dr Dogma, nothing—nothing”

“No! Then are you a duller man than I had rated you at! Do you
_suspect_ nothing?”

“Heaven protect me from suspicions! The devil besets all our minds with
doubts; but weak, and evil inclined, is he who submits to them. The
officers and crew of that ship are free drinkers, and as generous as
princes: Moreover, as they never forget to clear the score before they
leave the house, I call them—honest!”

“And I call them—pirates!”

“Pirates!” echoed Joram, fastening his eye, with marked distrust, on
the countenance of the attentive Wilder. “‘Pirate’ is a harsh word,
mister Robert, and should not be thrown in any gentleman’s face without
testimony enough to clear one in an action of defamation, should such a
thing get fairly before twelve sworn and conscientious men. But I
suppose you know what you say, and before whom you say it.”

“I do; and now, as it seems that your opinion in this matter amounts to
just nothing at all, you will please”

“To do any thing you order,” cried Joram, very evidently delighted to
change the subject.

“To go and ask the customers below if they are dry,” continued the
other, beckoning for the publican to retire by the way he entered, with
the air of one who felt certain of being obeyed. As soon as the door
was closed on the retiring landlord, he turned to his remaining
companion, and continued, “You seem as much struck aback as unbelieving
Joe himself, at what you have just heard.”

“It is a harsh suspicion, and should be well supported, old man, before
you venture to repeat it. What pirate has lately been heard of on this
coast?”

“There is the well-known Red Rover,” returned the other, dropping his
voice, and casting a furtive look around him, as if even he thought
extraordinary caution was necessary in uttering the formidable name.

“But he is said to keep chiefly in the Caribbean Sea.”

“He is a man to be any where, and every where. The King would pay him
well who put the rogue into the hands of the law.”

“A thing easier planned than executed,” Wilder thoughtfully answered.

“That is as it may be. I am an old fellow, and fitter to point out the
way than to go ahead. But you are like a newly fitted ship, with all
your rigging tight, and your spars without a warp in them. What say you
to make your fortune by selling the knaves to the King? It is only
giving the devil his own a few months sooner or later.”

Wilder started, and turned away from his companion like one who was
little pleased by the manner in which he expressed himself. Perceiving
the necessity of a reply, however, he demanded,—

“And what reason have you for believing your suspicions true? or what
means have you for effecting your object, if true, in the absence of
the royal cruisers?”

“I cannot swear that I am right; but, if sailing on the wrong tack, we
can only go about, when we find out the mistake. As to means, I confess
they are easier named than mustered.”

“Go, go; this is idle talk; a mere whim of your old brain,” said
Wilder, coldly; “and the less said the soonest mended. All this time we
are forgetting our proper business. I am half inclined to think, mister
Robert, you are holding out false lights, in order to get rid of the
duty for which you are already half paid.”

There was a look of satisfaction in the countenance of the old tar,
while Wilder was speaking, that might have struck his companion, had
not the young man risen, while speaking, to pace the narrow room, with
a thoughtful and hurried step.

“Well, well,” the former rejoined, endeavouring to disguise his evident
contentment, in his customary selfish, but shrewd expression, “I am an
old dreamer, and often have I thought myself swimming in the sea when I
have been safe moored on dry land! I believe there must soon be a
reckoning with the devil, in order that each may take his share of my
poor carcass, and I be left the Captain of my own ship. Now for your
Honour’s orders.”

Wilder returned to his seat, and disposed himself to give the necessary
instructions to his confederate, in order that he might counteract all
he had already said in favour of the outward-bound vessel.




Chapter XI.

“The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient;—three thousand, ducats;—I
think I may take his bond.”

_Merchant of Venice._


As the day advanced, the appearances of a fresh sea breeze setting in
gradually grew stronger; and, with the increase of the wind, were to be
seen all the symptoms of an intention to leave the harbour on the part
of the Bristol trader. The sailing of a large ship was an event of much
more importance in an American port, sixty years ago, than at the
present hour, when a score is frequently seen to arrive and depart from
one haven in a single day. Although claiming to be inhabitants of one
of the principal towns of the colony, the good people of Newport did
not witness the movements on board the “Caroline” with that species of
indolent regard which is the fruit of satiety in sights as well as in
graver things, and with which, in the course of time, the evolutions of
even a fleet come to be contemplated On the contrary, the wharves were
crowded with boys, and indeed with idlers of every growth. Even many of
the more considerate and industrious of the citizens were seen
loosening the close grasp they usually kept on the precious minutes,
and allowing them to escape uncounted, though not entirely unheeded, as
they yielded to the ascendency of curiosity over interest, and strayed
from their shops, and their work-yards, to gaze upon the noble
spectacle of a moving ship.

The tardy manner in which the crew of the “Caroline” made their
preparations, however, exhausted the patience of more than one
time-saving citizen. Quite as many of the better sort of the spectators
had left the wharves as still remained, and yet the vessel spread to
the breeze but the solitary sheet of canvas which has been already
named. Instead of answering the wishes of hundreds of weary eyes, the
noble ship was seen sheering about her anchor, inclining from the
passing wind, as her bows were alternately turned to the right and to
the left, like a restless courser restrained by the grasp of the groom,
chafing his bit, and with difficulty keeping those limbs upon the earth
with which he is shortly to bound around the ring. After more than an
hour of unaccountable delay, a rumour was spread among the crowd that
an accident had occurred, by which some important individual, belonging
to the complement of the vessel, was severely injured. But this rumour
passed away also, and was nearly forgotten, when a sheet of flame was
seen issuing from a bow-port of the “Caroline,” driving before it a
cloud of curling and mounting smoke, and which was succeeded by the
instant roar of a discharge of artillery. A bustle, like that which
usually precedes the immediate announcement of any long attended event,
took place among the weary expectants on the land, and every one now
felt certain, that, what ever might have occurred, it was settled that
the ship should proceed.

Of all this delay, the several movements on board, the subsequent
signal of sailing, and of the impatience in the crowd, Wilder had been
a grave and close observer. Posted with his back against the upright
fluke of a condemned anchor, on a wharf a little apart from that
occupied by most of the other spectators, he had remained an hour in
the same position scarcely bending his look to his right hand or to his
left. When the gun was fired he started, not with the nervous impulse
which had made a hundred others do precisely the same thing, but to
turn an anxious and rapid glance along the streets that came within the
range of his eye. From this hasty and uneasy examination, he soon
returned into his former reclining posture, though the wandering of his
glances and the whole expression of his meaning countenance would have
told an observer that some event, to which the young manner looked
forward with excessive interest, was on the eve of its consummation As
minute after minute, however, rolled by, his composure was gradually
restored, and a smile of satisfaction lighted his features, while his
lips moved like those of a man who expressed his pleasure in a
soliloquy. It was in the midst of these agreeable meditations, that the
sound of many voices met his ears; and, turning, he saw a large party
within a few yards of where he stood. He was not slow to detect among
them the forms of Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude, attired in such a manner as
to leave no doubt that they were at length on the eve of embarking.

A cloud, driving before the sun, does not produce a greater change in
the aspect of the earth, than was wrought in the expression of Wilder’s
countenance by this unexpected sight. He was just implicitly relying on
the success of an artifice, which though sufficiently shallow, he
flattered himself was deep enough to act on the timidity and credulity
of woman; and, now, was he suddenly awoke from his self-gratulation, to
prove the utter disappointment of his hopes. Muttering a suppressed but
deep execration against the perfidy of his confederate, he shrunk as
much as possible behind the fluke of the anchor, and fastened his eyes
sullenly on the ship.

The party which accompanied the travellers to the water side was, like
all other parties made to take leave of valued friends, taciturn and
restless. Those who spoke, did so with a rapid and impatient utterance,
as though they wished to hurry the very separation they regretted; and
the features of those who said nothing looked full of meaning. Wilder
heard several affectionate and warm-hearted wishes given, and promises
extorted, from youthful voices, all of which were answered in the soft
and mournful tones of Gertrude, and yet he obstinately refused to bend
even a stolen look in the direction of the speakers.

At length, a footstep, within a few feet of him, induced a hasty glance
aside. His eye met that of Mrs Wyllys. The lady started, as well as our
young mariner, at the sudden recognition; but, recovering her
self-possession, she observed, with admirable coolness,—

“You perceive, sir, that we are not to be deterred from an enterprise
once undertaken, by ordinary dangers.”

“I hope you may not have reason, Madam, to repent your courage.”

A short, but painfully thoughtful pause succeeded, on the part of Mrs
Wyllys. Casting a look behind her, in order to ascertain that she was
not overheard, she drew a step nigher to the youth, and said, in a
voice even lower than before,—

“It is not yet too late: Give me but the shadow of a reason for what
you have said, and I will wait for another ship. My feelings are
foolishly inclined to believe you, young man, though my judgment tells
me there is but too much probability that you trifle with our womanish
fears.”

“Trifle! On such a matter I would trifle with none of your sex; and
least of all with you!”

“This is extraordinary! For a stranger it is inexplicable Have you a
fact, or a reason, which I can plead to the friends of my young
charge?”

“You know them already.”

“Then, sir, am I compelled, against my will, to believe your motive is
one that you have some powerful considerations for wishing to conceal,”
coolly returned the disappointed and even mortified governess “For your
own sake, I hope it is not unworthy I thank you for all that is well
intended; if you have spoken aught which is otherwise, I forgive it.”

They parted, with the restraint of people who feel that distrust exists
between them. Wilder again shrunk behind his cover, maintaining a proud
position and a countenance that was grave to austerity. His situation,
however, compelled him to become an auditor of most of what was now
said.

The principal speaker, as was meet on such an occasion was Mrs de
Lacey, whose voice was often raised in sage admonitions and
professional opinions blended in a manner that all would admire, though
none of her sex, but they who had enjoyed the singular good fortune of
sharing in the intimate confidence of a flag-officer, might ever hope
to imitate.

“And now, my dearest niece,” concluded the relict of the Rear-Admiral,
after exhausting her breath, and her store of wisdom, in numberless
exhortations to be careful of her health, to write often to repeat the
actual words of her private message to her brother the General, to keep
below in gales of wind, to be particular in the account of any
extraordinary sight she might have the good fortune to behold in the
passage, and, in short, in all other matters likely to grow out of such
a leave-taking “and now, my dearest niece, I commit you to the mighty
deep, and One far mightier—to Him who made it. Banish from your
thoughts all recollections of any thing you may have heard concerning
the imperfections of the ‘Royal Caroline;’ for the opinion of the aged
seaman, who sailed with the lamented Admiral, assures me they are all
founded in mistake.” [“The treacherous villain!” muttered Wilder.] “Who
spoke?” said Mrs de Lacey; but, receiving no reply, she continued; “His
opinion is also exactly in accordance with my own, on more mature
reflection. To be sure, it is a culpable neglect to depend on bobstays
and gammonings for the security of the bowsprit, but still even this is
an oversight which, as my old friend has just told me, may be remedied
by ‘preventers and lashings.’ I have written a note to the
Master,—Gertrude, my dear, be careful ever to call the Master of the
ship _Mister_ Nichols; for none, but such as bear his Majesty’s
commission, are entitled to be termed _Captains;_ it is an honourable
station, and should always be treated with reverence, it being, in
fact, next in rank to a flag-officer,—I have written a note to the
Master on the subject, and he will see the neglect repaired and so, my
love, God bless you; take the best possible care of yourself; write me
by even opportunity; remember my kindest love to your father and be
very minute in your description of the whales.”

The eyes of the worthy and kind-hearted widow were filled with tears as
she ended; and there was a touch of nature, in the tremour of her
voice, that produced a sympathetic feeling in all who heard her words.
The final parting took place under the impression of these kind
emotions; and, before another minute, the oars of the boat, which bore
the travellers to the ship, were heard in the water.

Wilder listened to the well-known sounds with a feverish interest, that
he possibly might have found it difficult to explain even to himself. A
light touch on the elbow first drew his attention from the disagreeable
subject. Surprised at the circumstance, he faced the intruder, who
appeared to be a lad of apparently some fifteen years. A second look
was necessary to tell the abstracted young mariner that he again saw
the attendant of the Rover; he who has already been introduced in our
pages under the name of Roderick.

“Your pleasure?” he demanded, when his amazement at being thus
interrupted in his meditations, had a little subsided.

“I am directed to put these orders into your own hands,” was the
answer.

“Orders!” repeated the young man, with a curling lip. “The authority
should be respected which issues its mandates through such a
messenger.”

“The authority is one that it has ever proved dangerous to disobey,”
gravely returned the boy.

“Indeed! Then will I look into the contents with out delay, lest I fall
into some fatal negligence. Are you bid to wait an answer?”

On raising his eyes from the note the other had given him, after
breaking its seal, the young man found that the messenger had already
vanished. Perceiving how useless it would be to pursue so light a form,
amid the mazes of lumber that loaded the wharf, and most of the
adjacent shore, he opened the letter and read as follows:—

“An accident has disabled the Master of the outward-bound ship called
the ‘Royal Caroline!’ Her consignee is reluctant to intrust her to the
officer next in rank; but sail she must. I find she has credit for her
speed. If you have any credentials of _character_ and _competency_,
profit by the occasion, and earn the station you are finally destined
to fill. You have been named to some who are interested, and you have
been sought diligently. If this reach you in season, be on the alert,
and be decided. Show no surprise at any co-operation you may
unexpectedly meet. My agents are more numerous than you had believed.
The reason is obvious; gold is yellow, though I am


“RED.”


The signature, the matter, and the style of this letter, left Wilder in
no doubt as to its author. Casting a glance around him, he sprang into
a skiff; and, before the boat of the travellers had reached the ship,
that of Wilder had skimmed the water over half the distance between her
and the land. As he plied his skulls with vigorous and skilful arms, he
soon stood upon her decks. Forcing his way among the crowd of
attendants from the shore, that are apt to cumber a departing ship, he
reached the part of the vessel where a circle of busy and anxious faces
told him he should find those most concerned in her fate. Until now, he
had hardly breathed clearly, much less reflected on the character of
his sudden enterprise. It was too late, however, to retreat, had he
been so disposed, or to abandon his purpose, without incurring the
hazard of exciting dangerous suspicions A single instant served to
recal his thoughts, ere he demanded,—

“Do I see the owner of the ‘Caroline?’”

“The ship is consigned to our house,” returned a sedate, deliberate,
and shrewd-looking individual, in the attire of a wealthy, but also of
a thrifty, trader.

“I have heard that you have need of an experienced officer.”

“Experienced officers are comfortable things to an owner in a vessel of
value,” returned the merchant. “I hope the ‘Caroline’ is not without
her portion.”

“But I had heard, one to supply her Commander’s place, for a time, was
greatly needed?”

“If her Commander were incapable of doing his duty, such a thing might
certainly come to pass. Are you seeking a birth?”

“I have come to apply for the vacancy.”

“It would have been wiser, had you first ascertained there existed a
vacancy to fill. But you have not come to ask authority, in such a ship
as this, without sufficient testimony of your ability and fitness?”

“I hope these documents may prove satisfactory,” said Wilder, placing
in his hands a couple of unsealed letters.

During the time the other was reading the certificates for such they
proved to be, his shrewd eye was looking over his spectacles at the
subject of their contents, and returning to the paper, in alternate
glances, in such a way as to render it very evident that he was
endeavouring to assure himself of the fidelity of the words he read, by
actual observation.

“Hum! This is certainly very excellent testimony in your favour, young
gentleman; and—coming, as it does, from two so respectable and affluent
houses as Spriggs, Boggs and Tweed, and Hammer and Hacket—entitled to
great credit. A richer and broader bottomed firm than the former, is
not to be found in all his Majesty’s colonies; and I have great respect
for the latter, though envious people do say that they over-trade a
little.”

“Since, then, you esteem them so highly, I shall not be considered
hasty in presuming on their friendship.”

“Not at all, not at all, Mr a—a”—glancing his eye again into one of the
letters; “ay—Mr Wilder; there is never any presumption in a fair offer,
in a matter of business. Without offers to sell and offers to buy, our
property would never change hands, sir, ha! ha! ha! never change to a
profit, you know, young gentleman.”

“I am aware of the truth of what you say, and therefore I beg leave to
repeat my offer.”

“All perfectly fair and perfectly reasonable. But you cannot expect us,
Mr Wilder, to make a vacancy expressly for you to fill, though it must
be admitted that your papers are excellent—as good as the note of
Spriggs, Boggs and Tweed themselves—not to make a vacancy expressly”

“I had supposed the Master of the ship so seriously injured”—

“Injured, but not seriously,” interrupted the wary consignee, glancing
his eye around at sundry shippers, and one or two spectators, who were
within ear-shot; “injured certainly, but not so much as to quit the
vessel. No, no, gentlemen; the good ship ‘Royal Caroline’ proceeds on
her voyage, as usual, under the care of that old and well-tried
mariner, Nicholas Nichols.”

“Then, sir, am I sorry to have intruded on your time at so busy a
moment,” said Wilder, bowing with a disappointed air, and falling back
a step, as if about to withdraw.

“Not so hasty—not so hasty; bargains are not to be concluded, young
man, as you let a sail fall from the yard. It is possible that your
services may be of use, though not perhaps in the responsible situation
of Master. At what rate do you value the title of ‘Captain?’”

“I care little for the name, provided the trust and the authority are
mine.”

“A very sensible youth!” muttered the discreet merchant; “and one who
knows how to distinguish between the shadow and the substance! A
gentleman of your good sense and character must know, however, that the
reward is always proportioned to the nominal dignity. If I were acting
for myself, in this business, the case would be materially changed,
but, as an agent, it is a duty to consult the interest of my
principal.”

“The reward is of no account,” said Wilder, with an eagerness that
might have over-reached itself, had not the individual with whom he was
bargaining fastened his thoughts on the means of cheapening the other’s
services, with a steadiness from which they rarely swerved, when bent
on so commendable an object as saving: “I seek for service.”

“Then service you shall have; nor will you find us niggardly in the
operation. You cannot expect an advance, for a run of no more than a
month; nor any perquisites in the way of stowage, since the ship is now
full to her hatches; nor, indeed, any great price in the shape of
wages, since we take you chiefly to accommodate so worthy a youth, and
to honour the recommendations of so respectable a house as Spriggs,
Boggs and Tweed; but you will find us liberal, excessive liberal.
Stay—how know we that you are the person named in the invoi—I should
say, recommendation?”

“Does not the fact of possessing the letters establish my character?”

“It might in peaceable times; when the realm was not scourged by war. A
description of the person should have accompanied the documents, like a
letter of advice with the bill. As we take you at some risk in this
matter, you are not to be surprised that the price will be affected by
the circumstance. We are liberal; I believe no house in the colonies
pays more liberally; but then we have a character for prudence to
lose.”

“I have already said, sir, that the price shall not interrupt our
bargain.”

“Good: There is pleasure in transacting business on such liberal and
honourable views! And yet I wish a notarial seal, or a description of
the person, had accompanied the letters. This is the signature of
Robert Tweed; I know it well, and would be glad to see it at the bottom
of a promissory note for ten thousand pounds; that is, with a
responsible endorser; but the uncertainty is much against your
pecuniary interest, young man, since we become, as it were,
underwriters that you are the individual named.”

“In order that your mind may be at ease on the subject, Mr Bale,” said
a voice from among the little circle that was listening, with
characteristic interest, to the progress of the bargain, “I can
testify, or, should it be necessary, qualify to the person of the
gentleman.”

Wilder turned in some haste, and in no little astonishment, to discover
the acquaintance whom chance had thrown in so extraordinary, and
possibly in so disagreeable a manner, across his path; and that, too,
in a portion of the country where he wished to believe himself an
entire stranger. To his utter amazement, he found that the new speaker
was no other than the landlord of the “Foul Anchor.”—Honest Joe stood
with a perfectly composed look, and with a face that might readily have
been trusted to confront a far more imposing tribunal, awaiting the
result of his testimony on the seemingly wavering mind of the
consignee.

“Ah! you have lodged the gentleman for a time and you can testify that
he is a punctual paymaster and a civil inmate. But I want documents fit
to be filed with the correspondence of the owners _at home_”.

“I know not what sort of testimony you think fit for such good
company,” returned the unmoved publican holding up his hand with an air
of admirable innocence; “but, if the sworn declaration of a housekeeper
is of the sort you need, you are a magistrate and may begin to say over
the words at once.”

“Not I, not I, man. Though a magistrate, the oath is informal, and
would not be binding in law. But what do you know of the person in
question?”

“That he is as good a seaman, for his years, as any in the colonies.
There may be some of more practice and greater experience; I dare say
such are to be found; but as to activity, watchfulness, and prudence,
it would be hard to find his equal—especially for prudence.”

“You then are quite certain that this person is the individual named in
these papers?”

Joram received the certificates with the same admirable coolness he had
maintained from the commencement and prepared to read them with the
most scrupulous care. In order to effect this necessary operation, he
had to put on his spectacles, (for the landlord of the “Foul Anchor”
was in the wane of life), and Wilder fancied that he stood, during the
process, a notable example of how respectable depravity may become, in
appearance, when supported by a reverend air.

“This is all very true, Mr Bale,” continued the publican, removing his
glasses, and returning the papers. “They have forgotten to say any
thing of the manner in which he saved the ‘Lively Nancy,’ off Hatteras,
and how he run the ‘Peggy and Dolly’ over the Savannah bar, without a
pilot, blowing great guns from the northward and eastward at the time;
but I, who followed the water, as you know, in my younger days, have
often heard both circumstances mentioned among sea-faring men, and I am
a judge of the difficulty. I have an interest in this ship, neighbour
Bale, (for though a rich man, and I a poor one, we are nevertheless
neighbours)—I say I have an interest in this ship; since she is a
vessel that seldom quits Newport without leaving something to jingle in
my pocket, or I should not be here to-day, to see her lift her anchor.”

As the publican concluded, he gave audible evidence that his visit had
not gone unrewarded, by raising a music that was no less agreeable to
the ears of the thrifty merchant than to his own. The two worthies
laughed in an understanding way, and like two men who had found a
particular profit in their intercourse with the “Royal Caroline.” The
latter then beckoned Wilder apart, and, after a little further
preliminary discourse, the terms of the young mariner’s engagement were
finally settled. The true Master of the ship was to remain on board,
both as a security for the insurance, and in order to preserve her
reputation; but it was frankly admitted that his hurt, which was no
less than a broken leg, and which the surgeons were then setting, would
probably keep him below for a month to come. During the time he was
kept from his duty, his functions were to be filled, in effect, by our
adventurer. These arrangements occupied another hour of time, and then
the consignee left the vessel, perfectly satisfied with the prudent and
frugal manner in which he had discharged his duty towards his
principal. Before stepping into the boat, however, with a view to be
equally careful of his own interests, he took an opportunity to request
the publican to make a proper and legal affidavit of all that he knew,
“of his own knowledge,” concerning the officer just engaged Honest
Joram was liberal of his promises; but, as he saw no motive, now that
all was so happily effected, for incurring useless risks, he contrived
to evade their fulfilment, finding, no doubt, his apology for this
breach of faith in the absolute poverty of his information, when the
subject came to be duly considered, and construed literally by the
terms required.

It is unnecessary to relate the bustle, the reparation of
half-forgotten, and consequently neglected business, the duns, good
wishes, injunctions to execute commissions in some distant port, and
all the confused, and seemingly interminable, duties that crowd
themselves into the last ten minutes that precede the sailing of a
merchant vessel, more especially if she is fortunate, or rather
unfortunate enough to have passengers. A certain class of men quit a
vessel, in such a situation, with the reluctance that they would part
with any other well established means of profit, creeping down her
sides as lazily as the leech, filled to repletion, rolls from his
bloody repast. The common seaman, with an attention divided by the
orders of the pilot and the adieus of acquaintances, runs in every
direction but the right one, and, perhaps at the only time in his life,
seems ignorant of the uses of the ropes he has so long been accustomed
to handle. Notwithstanding all these vexatious delays, and customary
incumbrances, the “Royal Caroline” finally got rid of all her visitors
but one, and Wilder was enabled to indulge in a pleasure that a seaman
alone can appreciate—that clear decks and an orderly ship’s company.




Chapter XII.

“Good: Speak to the mariners: Fall to’t yarely, or we run ourselves
aground.”

_Tempest._


A good deal of the day had been wasted during the time occupied by the
scenes just related. The breeze had come in steady, but far from fresh.
So soon, however, as Wilder found himself left without the molestation
of idlers from the shore, and the busy interposition of the consignee,
he cast his eyes about him, with the intention of immediately
submitting the ship to its power. Sending for the pilot, he
communicated his determination, and withdrew himself to a part of the
deck whence he might take a proper survey of the materials of his new
command, and where he might reflect on the unexpected and extraordinary
situation in which he found himself.

The “Royal Caroline” was not entirely without pretensions to the lofty
name she bore. She was a vessel of that happy size in which comfort and
convenience had been equally consulted. The letter of the Rover
affirmed she had a reputation for her speed; and her young and
intelligent Commander saw, with great inward satisfaction, that she was
not destitute of the means of enabling him to exhibit all her finest
properties. A healthy, active, and skilful crew, justly proportioned
spars, little top-hamper, and an excellent trim, with a superabundance
of light sails, offered all the advantages his experience could
suggest. His eye lighted, as it glanced rapidly over these several
particulars of his command, and his lips moved like those of a man who
uttered an inward self-gratulation, or who indulged in some vaunt, that
propriety suggested should go no farther than his own thoughts.

By this time, the crew, under the orders of the pilot, were assembled
at the windlass, and had commenced heaving-in upon the cable. The
labour was of a nature to exhibit their individual powers, as well as
their collective force, to the greatest advantage. Their motion was
simultaneous, quick, and full of muscle. The cry was clear and
cheerful. As if to feel his influence, our adventurer lifted his own
voice, amid the song of the mariners, in one of those sudden and
inspiriting calls with which a sea officer is wont to encourage his
people. His utterance was deep, animated, and full of authority. The
seamen started like mettled coursers when they first hear the signal,
each man casting a glance behind him, as though he would scan the
qualities of his new superior Wilder smiled, like one satisfied with
his success; and, turning to pace the quarter-deck, he found himself
once more confronted by the calm, considerate but certainly astonished
eye of Mrs Wyllys.

“After the opinions you were pleased to express of this vessel,” said
the lady, in a manner of the coldest irony, “I did not expect to find
you filling a place of such responsibility here.”

“You probably knew, Madam,” returned the young mariner, “that a sad
accident had happened to her Master?”

“I did; and I had heard that another officer had been found,
temporarily, to supply his place. Still, I should presume, that, on
reflection, you will not think it remarkable I am amazed in finding who
this person is.”

“Perhaps, Madam, you may have conceived, from our conversations, an
unfavourable opinion of my professional skill. But I hope that on this
head you will place your mind at ease; for”——

“You are doubtless a master of the art! it would seem, at least, that
no trifling danger can deter you from seeking proper opportunities to
display this knowledge. Are we to have the pleasure of your company
during the whole passage, or do you leave us at the mouth of the port?”

“I am engaged to conduct the ship to the end of her voyage.”

“We may then hope that the danger you either saw or imagined is
lessened in your judgment, otherwise you would not be so ready to
encounter it in our company.”

“You do me injustice, Madam,” returned Wilder, with warmth, glancing
his eye unconsciously towards the grave, but deeply attentive Gertrude,
as he spoke; “there is no danger that I would not cheerfully encounter,
to save you, or this young lady, from harm.”

“Even this young lady must be sensible of your chivalry!” Then, losing
the constrained manner with which, until now, she had maintained the
discourse in one more natural, and one far more in consonance with her
usually mild and thoughtful mien, Mrs. Wyllys continued, “You have a
powerful advocate, young man, in the unaccountable interest which I
feel in your truth; an interest that my reason would fain condemn. As
the ship must need your services, I will no longer detain you.
Opportunities cannot be wanting to enable us to judge both of your
inclination and ability to serve us. Gertrude, my love, females are
usually considered as incumbrances in a vessel; more particularly when
there is any delicate duty to perform, like this before us.”

Gertrude started, blushed, and proceeded, after her governess, to the
opposite side of the quarter-deck followed by an expressive look from
our adventurer which seemed to say, he considered her presence any
thing else but an incumbrance. As the ladies immediately took a
position apart from every body, and one where they were least in the
way of working the ship, at the same time that they could command an
entire view of all her manoeuvres the disappointed sailor was obliged
to cut short a communication which he would gladly have continued until
compelled to take the charge of the vessel from the hands of the pilot.
By this time, however, the anchor was a-weigh, and the seamen were
already actively engaged in the process of making sail. Wilder lent
himself, with feverish excitement, to the duty; and, taking the words
from the officer who was issuing the necessary orders, he assumed the
immediate superintendence in person.

As sheet after sheet of canvas fell from the yards, and was distended
by the complicated mechanism, the interest that a seaman ever takes in
his vessel began to gain the ascendancy over all other feelings By the
time every thing was set, from the royals down, and the ship was cast
with her head towards the harbour’s mouth, our adventurer had probably
forgotten (for the moment only, it is true) that he was a stranger
among those he was in so extraordinary a manner selected to command,
and how precious a stake was intrusted to his firmness and decision.
After every thing was set to advantage, alow and aloft, and the ship
was brought close upon the wind, his eye scanned every yard and sail,
from the truck to the hull, and concluded by casting a glance along the
outer side of the vessel, in order to see that not even the smallest
rope was in the water to impede her progress. A small skiff, occupied
by a boy, was towing under the lee, and, as the mass of the vessel
began to move, it was skipping along the surface of the water, light
and buoyant as a feather. Perceiving that it was a boat belonging to
the shore, Wilder walked forward, and demanded its owner. A mate
pointed to Joram, who at that moment ascended from the interior of the
vessel, where he had been settling the balance due from a delinquent,
or, what was in his eyes the same thing, a departing debtor.

The sight of this man recalled Wilder to a recollection of all that had
occurred that morning, and of the whole delicacy of the task he had
undertaken to perform. But the publican, whose ideas appeared always
concentrated when occupied on the subject of gain, seemed troubled by
no particular emotions at the interview. He approached the young
mariner and, saluting him by the title of “Captain,” bade him a good
voyage, with those customary wish es which seamen express, when about
to separate on such an occasion.

“A lucky trip you have made of it, Captain Wilder,” he concluded, “and
I hope your passage will be short. You’ll not be without a breeze this
afternoon; and, by stretching well over towards Montauck you’ll be able
to make such an offing, on the other tack, as to run the coast down in
the morning. If I am any judge of the weather, the wind will have more
easting in it, than you may happen to find to your fancy.”

“And how long do you think my voyage is likely to last?” demanded
Wilder, dropping his voice so low as to reach no ears but those of the
publican.

Joram cast a furtive glance aside; and, perceiving that they were
alone, he suffered an expression of hardened cunning to take possession
of a countenance that ordinarily seemed set in dull, physical
contentment, as he replied, laying a finger on his nose while
speaking,—

“Didn’t I tender the consignee a beautiful oath, master Wilder?”

“You certainly exceeded my expectations with your promptitude, and”—

“Information!” added the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor,’ perceiving the
other a little at a loss for a word; “yes, I have always been
remarkable for the activity of my mind in these small matters; but,
when a man once knows a thing thoroughly, it is a great folly to spend
his breath in too many words.”

“It is certainly a great advantage to be so well instructed. I suppose
you improve your knowledge to a good account.”

“Ah! bless me, master Wilder, what would become of us all, in these
difficult times, if we did not turn an honest penny in every way that
offers? I have brought up several fine children in credit, and it
sha’n’t be my fault if I don’t leave them something too, besides my
good name. Well, well; they say, ‘A nimble sixpence is as good as a
lazy shilling;’ but give me the man who don’t stand shilly-shally when
a friend has need of his good word, or a lift from his hand. You always
know where to find such a man; as our politicians say, after they have
gone through thick and thin in the cause, be it right or be it wrong.”

“Very commendable principles! and such as will surely be the means of
exalting you in the world sooner or later! But you forget to answer my
question: Will the passage be long, or short?”

“Heaven bless you, master Wilder! Is it for a poor publican, like me,
to tell the Master of this noble ship which way the wind will blow
next? There is the worthy and notable Commander Nichols, lying in his
state-room below, he could do any thing with the vessel; and why am I
to expect that a gentleman so well recommended as yourself will do
less? I expect to hear that you have made a famous run, and have done
credit to the good word I have had occasion to say in your favour.”

Wilder execrated, in his heart, the wary cunning of the rogue with whom
he was compelled, for the moment, to be in league; for he saw plainly
that a determination not to commit himself a tittle further than he
might conceive to be absolutely necessary, was likely to render Joram
too circumspect, to answer his own immediate wishes. After hesitating a
moment, in order to reflect, he continued hastily,—

“You see that the ship is gathering way too fast to admit of trifling.
You know of the letter I received this morning?”

“Bless me, Captain Wilder! Do you take me for a postmaster? How should
I know what letters arrive at Newport, and what stop on the main?”

“As timid a villain as he is thorough!” muttered the young mariner.
“But this much you may surely say, Am I to be followed immediately? or
is it expected that I should detain the ship in the offing, under any
pretence that I can devise?”

“Heaven keep you, young gentleman! These are strange questions, to come
from one who is fresh off the sea, to a man that has done no more than
look at it from the land, these five-and-twenty years. According to my
memory, sir, you will keep the ship about south until you are clear of
the islands; and then you must make your calculations according to the
wind, in order not to get into the Gulf, where, you know, the stream
will be setting you one way, while your orders say, ‘Go another.’”

“Luff! mind your luff, sir!” cried the pilot, in a stern voice, to the
man at the helm; “luff you can; on no account go to leeward of the
slaver!”

Both Wilder and the publican started, as if they found something
alarming in the name of the vessel just alluded to; and the former
pointed to the skiff, as he said,—

“Unless you wish to go to sea with us, Mr Joram, it is time your boat
held its master.”

“Ay, ay, I see you are fairly under way, and I must leave you, however
much I like your company,” returned the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor,’
bustling over the side, and getting into his skiff in the best manner
he could. “Well, boys, a good time to ye; a plenty of wind, and of the
right sort; a safe passage out, and a quick return. Cast off.”

His order was obeyed; the light skiff, no longer impelled by the ship,
immediately deviated from its course; and, after making a little
circuit, it became stationary, while the mass of the vessel passed on,
with the steadiness of an elephant from whose back a butterfly had just
taken its flight. Wilder followed the boat with his eyes, for a moment;
but his thoughts were recalled by the voice of the pilot, who again
called, from the forward part of the ship,—

“Let the light sails lift a little, boy; let her lift keep every inch
you can, or you’ll not weather the slaver. Luff, I say, sir; luff.”

“The slaver!” muttered our adventurer, hastening to a part of the ship
whence he could command a view of that important, and to him doubly
interesting ship; “ay, the slaver! it may be difficult, indeed to
weather upon the slaver!”

He had unconsciously placed himself near Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude; the
latter of whom was leaning on the rail of the quarter-deck, regarding
the strange vessel at anchor, with a pleasure far from unnatural to her
years and sex.

“You may laugh at me, and call me fickle, and perhaps credulous, dear
Mrs Wyllys,” the unsuspecting girl cried, just as Wilder had taken the
foregoing position, “but I wish we were well out of this ‘Royal
Caroline,’ and that our passage was to be made in yonder beautiful
ship!”

“It is indeed a beautiful ship!” returned Wyllys; “but I know not that
it would be safer, or more comfortable, than the one we are in.”

“With what symmetry and order the ropes are arranged! and how like a
bird it floats upon the water!”

“Had you particularized the duck, the comparison would have been
exactly nautical,” said the governess, smiling mournfully; “you show
capabilities my love, to be one day a seaman’s wife.”

Gertrude blushed a little; and, turning back her head to answer in the
playful vein of her governess, her eye met the riveted look of Wilder,
fastened on herself. The colour on her cheek deepened to a carnation,
and she was mute; the large gipsy hat she wore serving to conceal both
her face and the confusion which so deeply suffused it.

“You make no answer, child, as if you reflected seriously on the
chances,” continued Mrs Wyllys, whose thoughtful and abstracted mien,
however, sufficiently proved she scarcely knew what she uttered.

“The sea is too unstable an element for my taste,” Gertrude coldly
answered. “Pray tell me, Mrs Wyllys, is the vessel we are approaching a
King’s ship? She has a warlike, not to say a threatening exterior.”

“The pilot has twice called her a slaver.”

“A slaver! How deceitful then is all her beauty and symmetry! I will
never trust to appearances again, since so lovely an object can be
devoted to so vile a purpose.”

“Deceitful indeed!” exclaimed Wilder aloud, under an impulse that he
found as irresistible as it was involuntary. “I will take upon myself
to say, that a more treacherous vessel does not float the ocean than
yonder finely proportioned and admirably equipped”——

“Slaver,” added Mrs Wyllys, who had time to turn, and to look all her
astonishment, before the young man appeared disposed to finish his own
sentence.

“Slaver;” he said with emphasis, bowing at the same time, as if he
would thank her for the word.

After this interruption, a profound silence occurred Mrs Wyllys studied
the disturbed features of the young man, for a moment, with a
countenance that denoted a singular, though a complicated, interest;
and then she gravely bent her eyes on the water, deeply occupied with
intense, if not painful reflection The light symmetrical form of
Gertrude continued leaning on the rail, it is true, but Wilder was
unable to catch another glimpse of her averted and shadowed lineaments.
In the mean while, events, that were of a character to withdraw his
attention entirely from even so pleasing a study, were hastening to
their accomplishment.

The ship had, by this time, passed between the little island and the
point whence Homespun had embarked, and might now be said to have
fairly left the inner harbour. The slaver lay directly in her track,
and every man in the vessel was gazing with deep interest, in order to
see whether they might yet hope to pass on her weather-beam. The
measure was desirable; because a seaman has a pride in keeping on the
honourable side of every thing he encounters but chiefly because, from
the position of the stranger, it would be the means of preventing the
necessity of tacking before the “Caroline” should reach a point more
advantageous for such a manoeuvre. The reader will, however, readily
understand that the interest of hear new Commander took its rise in far
different feelings from those of professional pride, or momentary
convenience.

Wilder felt, in every nerve, the probability that a crisis was at hand.
It will be remembered that he was profoundly ignorant of the immediate
intentions of the Rover. As the fort was not in a state for present
service, it would not be difficult for the latter to seize upon his
prey in open view of the townsmen and bear it off, in contempt of their
feeble means of defence. The position of the two ships was favourable
to such an enterprise. Unprepared, find unsuspecting, the “Caroline,”
at no time a natch for her powerful adversary, must fall an easy
victim; nor would there be much reason to apprehend that a single shot
from the battery could reach them, before the captor, and his prize,
would be at such a distance as to render the blow next to impotent if
not utterly innocuous. The wild and audacious character of such an
enterprise was in full accordance with the reputation of the desperate
freebooter on whose caprice, alone, the act now seemed solely to
depend.

Under these impressions, and with the prospect of such a speedy
termination to his new-born authority it is not to be considered
wonderful that our adventurer awaited the result with an interest far
exceeding that of any of those by whom he was surrounded He walked into
the waist of the ship, and endeavoured to read the plan of his secret
confederates by some of those indications that are familiar to a
seaman. Not the smallest sign of any intention to depart, or in any
manner to change her position, was, however, discoverable in the
pretended slaver. She lay in the same deep, beautiful, but treacherous
quiet, as that in which she had reposed throughout the whole of the
eventful morning. But a solitary individual could be seen amid the
mazes of her rigging, or along the wide reach of all her spars. It was
a seaman seated on the extremity of a lower yard, where he appeared to
busy himself with one of those repairs that are so constantly required
in the gear of a large ship. As the man was placed on the weather side
of his own vessel, Wilder instantly conceived the idea that he was thus
stationed to cast a grapnel into the rigging of the “Caroline,” should
such a measure become necessary, in order to bring the two ships foul
of each other. With a view to prevent so rude an encounter, he
instantly determined to defeat the plan. Calling to the pilot, he told
him the attempt to pass to windward was of very doubtful success, and
reminded him that the safer way would be to go to leeward.

“No fear, no fear, Captain,” returned the stubborn conductor of the
ship, who, as his authority was so brief, was only the more jealous of
its unrestrained exercise, and who, like an usurper of the throne, felt
a jealousy of the more legitimate power which he had temporarily
dispossessed; “no fear of me, Captain. I have trolled over this ground
oftener than you have crossed the ocean, and I know the name of every
rock on the bottom, as well as the town-crier knows the streets of
Newport. Let her luff, boy; luff her into the very eye of the wind;
luff, you can”——

“You have the ship shivering as it is, sir,” said Wilder, sternly:
“Should you get us foul of the slaver who is to pay the cost?”

“I am a general underwriter,” returned the opinionated pilot; “my wife
shall mend every hole I make in your sails, with a needle no bigger
than a hair, and with such a palm as a fairy’s thimble!”

“This is fine talking, sir, but you are already losing the ship’s way;
and, before you have ended your boasts, she will be as fast in irons as
a condemned thief. Keep the sails full, boy; keep them a rap full,
sir.”

“Ay, ay, keep her a good full,” echoed the pilot, who, as the
difficulty of passing to windward became at each instant more obvious,
evidently began to waver in his resolution. “Keep her full-and-by,—I
have always told you full-and-by,—I don’t know, Captain, seeing that
the wind has hauled a little, but we shall have to pass to leeward yet;
but you will acknowledge, that, in such case, we shall be obliged to go
about.”

Now, in point of fact, the wind, though a little lighter than it had
been, was, if anything, a trifle more favourable; nor had Wilder ever,
in any manner, denied that the ship would not have to tack, some twenty
minutes sooner, by going to leeward of the other vessel, than if she
had succeeded in her delicate experiment of passing on the more
honourable side; but, as the vulgarest minds are always the most
reluctant to confess their blunders, the discomfited pilot was disposed
to qualify the concession he found himself compelled to make, by some
salvo of the sort, that he might not lessen his reputation for
foresight, among his auditors.

“Keep her away at once,” cried Wilder, who was beginning to change the
tones of remonstrance for those of command; “keep the ship away, sir,
while you have room to do it, or, by the”——

His lips became motionless; for his eye happened to fall on the pale,
speaking, and anxious countenance of Gertrude.

“I believe it must be done, seeing that the wind is hauling. Hard up,
boy, and run her under the stern of the ship at anchor. Hold! keep your
luff again; eat into the wind to the bone, boy; lift again; let the
light sails lift. The slaver has run a warp directly across our track.
If there’s law in the Plantations, I’ll have her Captain before the
Courts for this!”

“What means the fellow?” demanded Wilder, jumping hastily on a gun, in
order to get a better view.

His mate pointed to the lee-quarter of the other vessel, where, sure
enough, a large rope was seen whipping the water, as though in the very
process of being extended. The truth instantly flashed on the mind of
our young mariner. The Rover lay secret-moored with a spring, with a
view to bring; his guns more readily to bear upon the battery, should
his defence become necessary, and he now profited, by the circumstance,
in order to prevent the trader from passing to leeward. The whole
arrangement excited a good deal of surprise, and not a few execrations
among the officers of the “Caroline;” though none but her Commander had
the smallest twinkling of the real reason why the kedge had thus been
laid, and why a warp was so awkwardly stretched across their path. Of
the whole number, the pilot alone saw cause to rejoice in the
circumstance. He had, in fact, got the ship in such a situation, as to
render it nearly as difficult to proceed in one way as in the other;
and he was now furnished with a sufficient justification, should any
accident occur, in the course of the exceedingly critical manoeuvre,
from whose execution there was now no retreat.

“This is an extraordinary liberty to take in the mouth of a harbour,”
muttered Wilder, when his eyes put him in possession of the fact just
related. “You must shove her by to windward, pilot; there is no
remedy.”

“I wash my hands of the consequences, as I call all on board to
witness,” returned the other, with the air of a deeply offended man,
though secretly glad of the appearance of being driven to the very
measure he was a minute before so obstinately bent on executing, “Law
must be called in here, if sticks are snapped, or rigging parted. Luff
to a hair, boy; luff her short into the wind, and try a half-board.”

The man at the helm obeyed the order. Releasing his hold of its spokes,
the wheel made a quick evolution; and the ship, feeling a fresh impulse
of the wind, turned her head heavily towards the quarter whence it
came, the canvas fluttering with a noise like that produced by a flock
of water-fowl just taking wing. But, met by the helm again, she soon
fell off as before, powerless from having lost her way, and settling
bodily down toward the fancied slaver, impelled by the air, which
seemed, however, to have lost much of its force, at the critical
instant it was most needed.

The situation of the “Caroline” was one which a seaman will readily
understand. She had forged so far ahead as to lie directly on the
weather-beam of the stranger, but too near to enable her to fall-off in
the least, without imminent danger that the vessels would come foul.
The wind was inconstant, sometimes blowing in puffs, while at moments
there was a perfect lull. As the ship felt the former, her tall masts
bent gracefully towards the slaver, as if to make the parting salute;
but, relieved from the momentary pressure of the inconstant air, she as
often rolled heavily to windward, without advancing a foot. The effect
of each change, however, was to bring her still nigher to her dangerous
neighbour, until it became evident, to the judgment of the youngest
seaman in the vessel, that nothing but a sudden shift of wind could
enable her to pass ahead, the more especially as the tide was on the
change.

As the inferior officers of the “Caroline” were not delicate in their
commentaries on the dulness which had brought them into so awkward and
so mortifying a position, the pilot endeavoured to conceal his own
vexation, by the number and vociferousness of his orders. From
blustering, he soon passed into confusion, until the men themselves
stood idle, not knowing which of the uncertain and contradictory
mandates they received ought to be first obeyed. In the mean time,
Wilder had folded his arms with an appearance of entire composure, and
taken his station near his female passengers. Mrs Wyllys closely
studied his eye, with the wish of ascertaining, by its expression, the
nature and extent of their danger, if danger there might be, in the
approaching collision of two ships in water that was perfectly smooth,
and where one was stationary and the motion of the other scarcely
perceptible. The stern, determined look she saw settling about the brow
of the young man excited an uneasiness that she would not otherwise
have felt, perhaps, under circumstances that, in themselves, bore no
very vivid appearance of hazard.

“Have we aught to apprehend, sir?” demanded the governess, endeavouring
to conceal from her charge the nature of her own disquietude.

“I told you, Madam, the ‘Caroline’ would prove an unlucky ship.”

Both females regarded the peculiarly bitter smile with which Wilder
made this reply as an evil omen, and Gertrude clung to her companion as
to one on whom she had long been accustomed to lean.

“Why do not the mariners of the slaver appear, to assist us—to keep us
from coming too nigh?” anxiously exclaimed the latter.

“Why do they not, indeed! but we shall see them, I think, ere long.”

“You speak and look, young man, as if you thought there would be danger
in the interview!”

“Keep near to me,” returned Wilder, in tones that were nearly smothered
by the manner in which he compressed his lips. “In every event, keep as
nigh my person as possible.”

“Haul the spanker-boom to windward,” shouted the pilot; “lower away the
boats, and tow the ship’s head round—clear away the stream anchor—aft
gib-sheet—board main tack, again.”

The astonished men stood like statues, not knowing whither to turn,
some calling to the rest to do this or that, and some as loudly
countermanding the order; when an authoritative voice was heard calmly
to say,—

“Silence in the ship.”

The tones-were of that sort which, while they denote the
self-possession of the speaker, never fail to inspire the inferior with
a portion of the confidence of him who commands. Every face was turned
towards the quarter of the vessel whence the sound proceeded, as if
each ear was ready to catch the smallest additional mandate. Wilder was
standing on the head of the capstan, where he could command a full view
on every side of him. With a quiet and understanding glance, he had
made himself a perfect master of the situation of his ship. His eye was
at the instant fixed anxiously on the slaver, as if it would pierce the
treacherous calm which still reigned on all about her, in order to know
how far his exertions might be permitted to be useful. But it appeared
as if the stranger lay like some enchanted vessel on the water, not a
human form even appearing about all her complicated machinery, except
the seaman already named, who still continued his employment, as though
the “Caroline” was not within a hundred miles of the place where he
sat. The lips of Wilder moved: it might be in bitterness; it might be
in satisfaction; for, a smile of the most equivocal nature lighted his
features, as he continued, in the same deep, commanding voice as
before,—

“Throw all aback—lay every thing flat to the masts, forward and aft.”

“Ay!” echoed the pilot, “lay every thing flat to the masts.”

“Is there a shove-boat alongside the ship?” demanded our adventurer.

The answer, from a dozen voices, was in the affirmative.

“Show that pilot into her.”

“This is an unlawful order,” exclaimed the other, “and I forbid any
voice but mine to be obeyed.”

“_Throw_ him in,” sternly repeated Wilder.

Amid the bustle and exertion of bracing round the yards, the resistance
of the pilot produced little or no sensation. He was soon raised on the
extended arms of the two mates; and, after exhibiting his limbs in
sundry contortions in the air, he was dropped into the boat, with as
little ceremony as though he had been a billet of wood. The end of the
painter was cast after him; and then the discomfited guide was left,
with singular indifference, to his own meditations.

In the mean time, the order of Wilder had been executed. Those vast
sheets of canvas which, a moment before, had been either fluttering in
the air, or were bellying inward or outward, as they touched or filled,
as it is technically called, were now all pressing against their
respective masts, impelling the vessel to retrace her mistaken path.
The manoeuvre required the utmost attention, and the nicest delicacy in
its direction. But her young Commander proved himself, in every
particular, competent to his task. Here, a sail was lifted; there,
another was brought with a flatter surface to the air; now, the lighter
canvas was spread; and now it disappeared, like thin vapour suddenly
dispelled by the sun. The voice of Wilder, throughout, though calm, was
breathing with authority. The ship itself seemed, like an animated
being, conscious that her destinies were reposed in different, and more
intelligent, hands than before. Obedient to the new impulse they had
received the immense cloud of canvas, with all its tall forest of spars
and rigging, rolled to and fro; and then, having overcome the state of
comparative rest in which it had been lying, the vessel heavily yielded
to the pressure, and began to recede.

Throughout the whole of the time necessary to extricate the “Caroline,”
the attention of Wilder was divided between his own ship and his
inexplicable neighbour. Not a sound was heard to issue from the
imposing and death-like stillness of the latter. Not a single anxious
countenance, not even one lurking eye, was to be detected, at any of
the numerous outlets by which the inmates of an armed vessel can look
abroad upon the deep. The seaman on the yard continued his labour, like
a man unconscious of any thing but his own existence. There however, a
slow, though nearly imperceptible, motion in the ship itself, which was
apparently made, like the lazy movement of a slumbering whale, more by
listless volition, than through any agency of human hands.

Not the smallest of these changes escaped the keen and understanding
examination of Wilder. He saw that, as his own ship retired, the side
of the slaver was gradually exposed to the “Caroline.” The muzzles of
the threatening guns gaped constantly on his vessel, as the eye of the
crouching tiger follows the movement of its prey; and at no time, while
nearest, did there exist a single instant that the decks of the latter
ship could not have been swept, by a general discharge from the battery
of the former. At each successive order issued from his own lips, our
adventurer turned his eye, with increasng interest, to ascertain
whether he would be permitted to execute it; and never did he feel
certain that he was left to the sole management of the “Caroline” until
he found that she had backed from her dangerous proximity to the other;
and that, obedient to a new disposition of her sails, she was falling
off, before the light air, in a place where he could hold her entirely
at command.

Finding that the tide was getting unfavourable and the wind too light
to stem it, the sails were then drawn to her yards in festoons, and an
anchor was dropped to the bottom.




Chapter XIII.

“What have here? A man, or a fish?”

_The Tempest._


The “Caroline” now lay within a cable’s length of the supposed slaver.
In dismissing the pilot, Wilder had assumed a responsibility from which
a seaman usually shrinks, since, in the case of any untoward accident
in leaving the port, it would involve a loss of insurance, and his own
probable punishment. How far he had been influenced, in taking so
decided a step, by a knowledge of his being beyond or above, the reach
of the law, will probably be made manifest in the course of the
narrative; the only immediate effect of the measure, was, to draw the
whole of his attention, which had before been so much divided between
his passengers and the ship, to the care of the latter. But, so soon as
his vessel was secured, for a time at least, and his mind was no longer
excited by the expectation of a scene of immediate violence, our
adventurer found leisure to return to his former, though (to so
thorough a seaman) scarcely more agreeable occupation. The success of
his delicate manoeuvre had imparted to his countenance a glow of
something very like triumph; and his step, as he advanced towards Mrs.
Wyllys and Gertrude, was that of a man who enjoyed the consciousness of
having acquitted himself dexterously, in circumstances that required no
small exhibition of professional skill. At least, such was the
construction the former lady put upon his kindling eye and exulting
air; though the latter might, possibly be disposed to judge of his
motives with greater indulgence. Perhaps both were ignorant of the
secret reasons of his self-felicitation; and it is possible that a
sentiment, of a far more generous nature than either of them could
imagine, had a full share of its influence in his present feelings.

Be this as it might, Wilder no sooner saw that the “Caroline” was
swinging to her anchor, and that his services were of no further
immediate use, than he sought an opportunity to renew a conversation
which had hitherto been so vague, and so often interrupted. Mrs Wyllys
had long been viewing the neighbouring vessel with a steady look; nor
did she now turn her gaze from the motionless and silent object, until
the young mariner was near her person. She was then the first to speak.

“Yonder vessel must possess an extraordinary, not to say an insensible,
crew!” exclaimed the governess in a tone bordering on astonishment. “If
such things were, it would not be difficult to fancy her a
spectre-ship.”

“She is truly an admirably proportioned and a beautifully equipped
trader!”

“Did my apprehensions deceive me? or were we in actual danger of
getting the two vessels entangled?”

“There was certainly some reason for apprehension; but you see we are
safe.”

“For which we have to thank your skill. The manner in which you have
just extricated us from the late danger, has a direct tendency to
contradict all that you were pleased to foretel of that which is to
come.”

“I well know, Madam, that my conduct may bear an unfavourable
construction, but”—

“You thought it no harm to laugh at the weakness of three credulous
females,” continued Mrs Wyllys, smiling. “Well, you have had your
amusement; and now. I hope, you will be more disposed to pity what is
said to be a natural infirmity of woman’s mind.”

As the governess concluded, she glanced her eye at Gertrude, with an
expression that seemed to say it would be cruel, now, to trifle further
with the apprehensions of one so innocent and so young. The look of
Wilder followed her own; and when he answered it was with a sincerity
that was well calculated to carry conviction in its tones.

“On the faith which a gentleman owes to all your sex, Madam, what I
have already told you I still continue to believe.”

“The gammonings and the top-gallant-masts!”

“No, no,” interrupted the young mariner, slightly laughing, and at the
same time colouring a good deal; “perhaps not all of that. But neither
mother, wife, nor sister of mine, should make this passage in the
‘Royal Caroline.’”

“Your look, your voice, and your air of good faith, make a strange
contradiction to your words, young man; for, while the former almost
tempt me to believe you honest, the latter have not a shade of reason
to support them. Perhaps I ought to be ashamed of such a weakness, and
yet I will acknowledge that the mysterious quiet, which seems to have
settled for ever on yonder ship, has excited an inexplicable
uneasiness, that may in some way be connected with her character.—She
is certainly a slaver?”

“She is certainly beautiful!” exclaimed Gertrude.

“Very beautiful!” Wilder gravely rejoined.

“There is a man still seated on one of her yards who appears to be
entranced in his occupation,” continued Mrs Wyllys, leaning her chin
thoughtfully on her hand, as she gazed at the object of which she was
speaking. “Not once, during the time we were in so much danger of
getting the ships entangled, did that seaman bestow so much as a stolen
glance towards us. He resembles the solitary individual in the city of
the transformed; for not another mortal is there to keep him company,
so far as we may discover.”

“Perhaps his comrades sleep,” said Gertrude.

“Sleep! Mariners do not sleep in an hour and a day like this! Tell me,
Mr Wilder, (you that are a seaman should know), is it usual for the
crew to sleep when a strange vessel is so nigh—near even to touching, I
might almost say?”

“It is not.”

“I thought as much; for I am not an entire novice in matters of your
daring, your hardy, your _noble_ profession!” returned the governess,
with deep emphasis “And, had we gone foul of the slaver, do you think
her crew would have maintained their apathy?”

“I think not, Madam.”

“There is something, in all this assumed tranquillity, which might
induce one to suspect the worst of her character. Is it known that any
of her crew have had communication with the town, since her arrival?”

“It is.”

“I have heard that false colours have been seen on the coast, and that
ships have been plundered, and their people and passengers maltreated,
during the past summer. It is even thought that the famous Rover has
tired of his excesses on the Spanish Main, and that a vessel was not
long since seen in the Caribbean sea, which was thought to be the
cruiser of that desperate pirate!”

Wilder made no reply. His eyes, which had been fastened steadily,
though respectfully, on those of the speaker, fell to the deck, and he
appeared to await whatever her further pleasure might choose to utter.
The governess mused a moment; and then, with a change in the expression
of her countenance which proved that her suspicion of the truth was too
light to continue without further and better confirmation, she added,—

“After all, the occupation of a slaver is bad enough, and unhappily by
far too probable, to render it necessary to attribute any worse
character to the stranger. I would I knew the motive of your singular
assertions, Mr Wilder?”

“I cannot better explain them, Madam: unless my manner produces its
effect, I fail altogether in my intentions, which at least are
sincere.”

“Is not the risk lessened by your presence?”

“Lessened, but not removed.”

Until now, Gertrude had rather listened, as if unavoidably, than seemed
to make one of the party. But here she turned quickly, and perhaps a
little impatiently, to Wilder, and, while her cheeks glowed she
demanded, with a smile that might have brought even a more obdurate man
to his confession,—

“Is it forbidden to be more explicit?”

The young Commander hesitated, perhaps as much to dwell upon the
ingenuous features of the speaker, as to decide upon his answer. The
colour mounted into his own embrowned cheek, and his eye lighted with a
gleam of open pleasure; then, as though suddenly reminded that he was
delaying to reply, he said,—

“I am certain, that, in relying on your discretion, I shall be safe.”

“Doubt it not,” returned Mrs Wyllys. “In no event shall you ever be
betrayed.”

“Betrayed! For myself, Madam, I have little fear. If you suspect me of
personal apprehension you do me great injustice.”

“We suspect you of nothing unworthy,” said Gertrude hastily, “but—we
are very anxious for ourselves.”

“Then will I relieve your uneasiness, though at the expense of”——

A call, from one of the mates to the other, arrested his words for the
moment, and drew his attention to the neighbouring ship.

“The slaver’s people have just found out that their ship is not made to
put in a glass case, to be looked at by women and children,” cried the
speaker in tones loud enough to send his words into the fore-top, where
the messmate he addressed was attending to some especial duty.

“Ay, ay,” was the answer; “seeing us in motion, has put him in mind of
his next voyage. They keep watch aboard the fellow, like the sun in
Greenland six months on deck, and six months below!”

The witticism produced, as usual, a laugh among the seamen, who
continued their remarks in a similar vein, but in tones more suited to
the deference due to their superiors.

The eyes, however, of Wilder had fastened themselves on the other ship.
The man so long seated on the end of the main-yard had disappeared, and
another sailor was deliberately walking along the opposite quarter of
the same spar, steadying himself by the boom, and holding in one hand
the end of a rope, which he was apparently about to reeve in the place
where it properly belonged. The first glance told Wilder that the
latter was Fid, who was so far recovered from his debauch as to tread
the giddy height with as much, if not greater, steadiness than he would
have rolled along the ground, had his duty called him to terra firma.
The countenance of the young man, which, an instant before, had been
flushed with excitement, and which was beaming with the pleasure of an
opening confidence, changed directly to a look of gloom and reserve.
Mrs Wyllys who had lost no shade of the varying expression of his face,
resumed the discourse, with some earnestness, where he had seen fit so
abruptly to break it off.

“You would relieve us,” she said, “at the expense of”——

“Life, Madam; but not of honour.”

“Gertrude, we can now retire to our cabin,” observed Mrs Wyllys, with
an air of cold displeasure, in which disappointment was a good deal
mingled with resentment at the trifling of which she believed herself
the subject. The eye of Gertrude was no less averted and distant than
that of her governess, while the tint that gave lustre to its beam was
brighter, if not quite so resentful. As the two moved past the silent
Wilder, each dropped a distant salute, and then our adventurer found
himself the sole occupant of the quarter-deck. While his crew were
busied in coiling ropes, and clearing the decks, their young Commander
leaned his head on the taffrail, (that part of the vessel which the
good relict of the Rear-Admiral had so strangely confounded with a very
different object in the other end of the ship), remaining for many
minutes in an attitude of deep abstraction. From this reverie he was at
length aroused, by a sound like that produced by the lifting and
falling of a light oar into the water. Believing himself about to be
annoyed by visiters from the land, he raised his head, and cast a
dissatisfied glance over the vessel’s side, to see who was approaching.

A light skiff, such as is commonly used by fishermen in the bays and
shallow waters of America, was lying within ten feet of the ship, and
in a position where it was necessary to take some little pains in order
to observe it. It was occupied by a single man, whose back was towards
the vessel, and who was apparently abroad on the ordinary business of
the owner of such a boat.

“Are you in search of rudder-fish, my friend, that you hang so closely
under my counter?” demanded Wilder. “The bay is said to be full of
delicious bass, and other scaly gentlemen, that would far better repay
your trouble.”

“He is well paid who gets the bite he baits for,” returned the other,
turning his head, and exhibiting the cunning eye and chuckling
countenance of old Bob Bunt, as Wilder’s recent and treacherous
confederate had announced his name to be.

“How now! Dare you trust yourself with me, in five-fathom water, after
the villanous trick you have seen fit”—

“Hist! noble Captain, hist!” interrupted Bob, holding up a finger, to
repress the other’s animation, and intimating, by a sign, that their
conference must be held in lower tones; “there is no need to call all
hands to help us through a little chat. In what way have I fallen to
leeward of your favour, Captain?”

“In what way, sirrah! Did you not receive money, to give such a
character of this ship to the ladies as (you said yourself) would make
them sooner pass the night in a churchyard, than trust foot on board
her?”

“Something of the sort passed between us, Captain; but you forgot one
half of the conditions, and I overlooked the other; and I need not tell
so expert a navigator, that two halves make a whole. No wonder,
therefore, that the affair dropt through between us.”

“How! Do you add falsehood to perfidy? What part of my engagement did I
neglect?”

“What part!” returned the pretended fisherman, leisurely drawing in a
line, which the quick eye of Wilder saw, though abundantly provided
with lead at the end, was destitute of the equally material
implement—the hook; “What part, Captain! No less a particular than the
second guinea.”

“It was to have been the reward of a service done, and not an earnest,
like its fellow, to induce you to undertake the duty.”

“Ah! you have helped me to the very word I wanted. I fancied it was not
in earnest, like the one I got, and so I left the job half finished.”

“Half finished, scoundrel! you never commenced what you swore so
stoutly to perform.”

“Now are you on as wrong a course, my Master, as if you steered due
east to get to the Pole. I religiously performed one half my
undertaking; and, you will acknowledge, I was only half paid.”

“You would find it difficult to prove that you even did that little.”

“Let us look into the log. I enlisted to walk up the hill as far as the
dwelling of the good Admiral’s widow, and there to make certain
alterations in my sentiments, which it is not necessary to speak of
between us.”

“Which you did not make; but, on the contrary, which you thwarted, by
telling an exactly contradictory tale.”

“True.”

“True! knave?—Were justice done you, an acquaintance with a rope’s end
would be a merited reward.”

“A squall of words!—If your ship steer as wild as your ideas, Captain,
you will make a crooked passage to the south. Do you not think it an
easier matter, for an old man like me, to tell a few lies than to climb
yonder long and heavy hill? In strict justice, more than half my duty
was done when I got into the presence of the believing widow; and when
I concluded to refuse the half of the reward that was unpaid, and to
take bounty from t’other side.”

“Villain!” exclaimed Wilder, a little blinded by resentment, “even your
years shall no longer protect you from punishment. Forward, there! send
a crew into the jolly boat, sir, and bring me this old fellow in the
skiff on board the ship. Pay no attention to his outcries; I have an
account to settle with him, that cannot be balanced without a little
noise.”

The mate, to whom this order was addressed, and who had answered the
hail, jumped on the rail, where he got sight of the craft he was
commanded to chase. In less than a minute he was in the boat, with four
men, and pulling round the bows of the ship, in order to get on the
side necessary to effect his object. The self-styled Bob Bunt gave one
or two strokes with his skulls, and sent, the skiff some twenty or
thirty fathoms off, where he lay, chuckling like a man who saw only the
success of his cunning, without any apparent apprehensions of the
consequences. But, the moment the boat appeared in view, he laid
himself to the work with vigorous arms, and soon convinced the
spectators that his capture was not to be achieved without abundant
difficulty.

For some little time, it was doubtful what course the fugitive meant to
take; for he kept whirling and turning in swift and sudden circles,
completely confusing and baffling his pursuers, by his skilful and
light evolutions. But, soon tiring of this taunting amusement, or
perhaps apprehensive of exhausting his own strength, which was
powerfully and most dexterously exerted, it was not long before he
darted off in a perfectly straight line, taking the direction of the
“Rover.”

The chase now grew hot and earnest, exciting the clamour and applause
of most of the nautical spectators The result, for a time, seemed
doubtful; but, if any thing, the jolly boat, though some distance
astern, began to gain, as it gradually overcame the resistance of the
water. In a very few minutes, however, the skiff shot under the stern
of the other ship, and disappeared, bringing the hull of the vessel in
a line with the “Caroline” and its course. The pursuers were not long
in taking the same direction and then the seamen of the latter ship
began, laughingly to climb the rigging, in order to command a further
view, over the intervening object.

Nothing, however, was to be seen beyond but water, and the still more
distant island, with its little fort. In a few minutes, the crew of the
jolly boat were observed pulling back in their path, returning slowly,
like men who were disappointed. All crowded to the side of the ship, in
order to hear the termination of the adventure; the noisy assemblage
even drawing the two passengers from the cabin to the deck. Instead,
however, of meeting the questions of their shipmates with the usual
wordy narrative of men of their condition, the crew of the boat wore
startled and bewildered looks. Their officer sprang to the deck without
speaking, and immediately sought his Commander.

“The skiff was too light for you, Mr Nighthead,” Wilder calmly
observed, as the other approached, having never moved, himself, from
the place where he had been standing during the whole proceeding.

“Too light, sir! Are you acquainted with the man who pulled it?”

“Not particularly well: I only know him for a knave.”

“He should be one, since he is of the family of the devil!”

“I will not take on myself to say he is as bad as you appear to think,
though I have little reason to believe he has any honesty to cast into
the sea. What has become of him?”

“A question easily asked, but hard to answer. In the first place,
though an old and a gray-headed fellow, he twitched his skiff along as
if it floated in air. We were not a minute, or two at the most, behind
him; but, when we got on the other side of the slaver, boat and man had
vanished!”

“He doubled her bows while you were crossing the stern.”

“Did you see him, then?”

“I confess we did not.”

“It could not be, sir; since we pulled far enough ahead to examine on
both sides at once; besides, the people of the slaver knew nothing of
him.”

“You saw the slaver’s people?”

“I should have said her man; for there is seemingly but one hand on
board her.”

“And how was he employed?”

“He was seated in the chains, and seem’d to have been asleep. It is a
lazy ship, sir; and one that takes more money from her owners, I fancy,
than it ever returns!”

“It may be so. Well, let the rogue escape. There is the prospect of a
breeze coming in from the sea, Mr Earing; we will get our topsails to
the mast-heads again, and be in readiness for it. I could like yet to
see the sun set in the water.”

The mates and the crew went cheerfully to their task, though many a
curious question was asked, by the wondering seamen, of their shipmates
who had been in the boat, and many a solemn answer was given, while
they were again spreading the canvas, to invite the breeze. Wilder
turned, in the mean time, to Mrs Wyllys, who had been an auditor of his
short conversation with the mate.

“You perceive, Madam,” he said, “that our voyage does not commence
without its omens.”

“When you tell me, inexplicable young man, with the air of singular
sincerity you sometimes possess, that we are unwise in trusting to the
ocean, I am half inclined to put faith in what you say; but when you
attempt to enforce your advice with the machinery of witchcraft, you
only induce me to proceed.”

“Man the windlass!” cried Wilder, with a look that seemed to tell his
companions, If you are so stout of heart, the opportunity to show your
resolution shall not be wanting. “Man the windlass there! We will try
the breeze again, and work the ship into the offing while there is
light.”

The clattering of handspikes preceded the mariners song. Then the heavy
labour, by which the ponderous iron was lifted from the bottom, was
again resumed, and, in a few more minutes, the ship was once more
released from her hold upon the land.

The wind soon came fresh off the ocean, charged with the saline
dampness of the element. As the air fell upon the distended and
balanced sails, the ship bowed to the welcome guest; and then, rising
gracefully from its low inclination, the breeze was heard singing,
through the maze of rigging, the music that is ever grateful to a
seaman’s ear. The welcome sounds, and the freshness of the peculiar air
gave additional energy to the movements of the men. The anchor was
stowed, the ship cast, the lighter sails set, the courses had fallen,
and the bows of the “Caroline” were throwing the spray before her, ere
another ten minutes had gone by.

Wilder had now undertaken himself the task of running his vessel
between the islands of Connannicut and Rhode. Fortunately for the heavy
responsibility he had assumed, the channel was not difficult and the
wind had veered so far to the east as to give him a favourable
opportunity, after making a short stretch to windward, of laying
through in a single reach. But this stretch would bring him under the
necessity of passing very near the “Rover,” or of losing no small
portion of his ’vantage ground. He did not hesitate. When the vessel
was as nigh the weather shore as his busy lead told him was prudent the
ship was tacked, and her head laid directly towards the still
motionless and seemingly unobservant slaver.

The approach of the “Caroline” was far more propitious than before. The
wind was steady, and her crew held her in hand, as a skilful rider
governs the action of a fiery and mettled steed. Still the passage was
not made without exciting a breathless interest in every soul in the
Bristol trader. Each individual had his own secret cause of curiosity.
To the seamen, the strange ship began to be the subject of wonder; the
governess, and her ward, scarce knew the reasons of their emotions;
while Wilder was but too well instructed in the nature of the hazard
that all but himself were running. As before the man at the wheel was
about to indulge his nautical pride, by going to windward; but,
although the experiment would now have been attended with but little
hazard, he was commanded to proceed differently.

“Pass the slaver’s lee-beam, sir,” said Wilder to him, with a gesture
of authority; and then the young Captain went himself to lean on the
weather-rail, like every other idler on board, to examine the object
they were so fast approaching. As the “Caroline” came boldly up,
seeming to bear the breeze before her, the sighing of the wind, as it
murmured through the rigging of the stranger, was the only sound that
issued from her. Not a single human face, not even a secret and curious
eye, was any where to be seen. The passage was of course rapid, and, as
the two vessels, for an instant, lay with heads and sterns nearly
equal, Wilder thought it was to be made without the slightest notice
from the imaginary slaver. But he was mistaken. A light, active form,
in the undress attire of a naval officer, sprang upon the taffrail, and
waved a sea-cap in salute. The instant the fair hair was blowing about
the countenance of this individual, Wilder recognized the quick, keen
eye and features of the Rover.

“Think you the wind will hold here, sir?” shouted the latter, at the
top of his voice.

“It has come in fresh enough to be steady,” was the answer.

“A wise mariner would get all his easting in time to me, there is a
smack of West-Indies about it.”

“You believe we shall have it more at south?”

“I do: But a taught bow-line, for the night, will carry you clear.”

By this time the “Caroline” had swept by, and she was now luffing,
across the slaver’s bows, into her course again. The figure on the
taffrail waved high the sea-cap in adieu, and disappeared.

“Is it possible that such a man can traffic in human beings!” exclaimed
Gertrude, when the sounds of both voices had ceased.

Receiving no reply, she turned quickly, to regard her companion. The
governess was standing like a being entranced, with her eyes looking on
vacancy for they had not changed their direction since the motion of
the vessel had carried her beyond the countenance of the stranger. As
Gertrude took her hand, and repeated the question, the recollection of
Mrs Wyllys returned. Passing her own hand over her brow, with a
bewildered air, she forced a smile as she said,—

“The meeting of vessels, or the renewal of any maritime experience,
never fails to revive my earliest recollections, love. But surely that
was an extraordinary being, who has at length shown himself in the
slaver!”

“For a slaver, most extraordinary!”

Wyllys leaned her head on her hand for an instant, and then turned to
seek the person of Wilder. The young mariner was standing near,
studying the expression of her countenance, with an interest scarcely
less remarkable than her own air of thought.

“Tell me, young man, is yonder individual the Commander of the slaver?”

“He is.”

“You know him?”

“We have met.”

“And he is called——”

“The Master of yon ship. I know no other name.”

“Gertrude, we will seek our cabin. When the land is leaving us, Mr
Wilder will have the goodness to let us know.”

The latter bowed his assent, and the ladies then left the deck. The
“Caroline” had now the prospect of getting speedily to sea. In order to
effect this object, Wilder had every thing, that would draw, set to the
utmost advantage. One hundred times, at least, however, did he turn his
head, to steal a look at the vessel he had left behind. She ever lay as
when they passed—a regular, beautiful but motionless object, in the
bay. From each of these furtive examinations, our adventurer invariably
cast an excited and impatient glance at the sails of his own ship;
ordering this to be drawn tighter to the spar beneath, or that to be
more distended along its mast.

The effect of so much solicitude, united with so much skill, was to
urge the Bristol trader through her element at a rate she had rarely,
if ever, surpassed It was not long before the land ceased to be seen on
her two beams, and then it was only to be traced in the blue islands in
their rear, or in a long, dim horizon, to the north and west, where the
limits of the vast Continent stretches for countless leagues. The
passengers were now summoned to take their parting look at the land,
and the officers were seen noting their departures. Just before the day
shut in, and ere the islands were entirely sunk into the waves, Wilder
ascended to an upper yard bearing in his hand a glass. His gaze,
towards the haven he had left, was long, anxious, and abstracted. But
his descent was distinguished by a more quiet eye, and a calmer mien. A
smile, like that of success played about his lips; and he gave his
orders clearly, in a cheerful, encouraging voice. They were obeyed as
briskly. The elder mariners pointed to the seas, as they cut through
them, and affirmed that never had the “Caroline” made such progress.
The mates cast the log, and nodded their approbation as one announced
to the other the unwonted speed of the ship. In short, content and
hilarity reigned on board; for it was deemed that their passage was
commenced under such auspices as would lead it to a speedy and a
prosperous termination. In the midst of these encouraging omens, the
sun dipped into the sea, illuming, as it fell, a wide reach of the
chill and gloomy element. Then the shades of the hour began to gather
over the vast surface of the illimitable waste.




Chapter XIV.

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

_Macbeth._


The first watch of the night was marked by no change. Wilder had joined
his passengers, cheerful, and with that air of enjoyment which every
officer of the sea is more or less wont to exhibit, when he has
disengaged his vessel from the dangers of the land, and has fairly
launched her on the trackless and fathomless abyss of the ocean. He no
longer alluded to the hazards of the passage, but strove, by the
thousand nameless assiduities which his station enabled him to man
fest, to expel all recollection of had passed from their minds. Mrs
Wyllys lent herself to his evident efforts to remove their
apprehensions and one, ignorant of what had occurred between them,
would have thought the little party, around the evening’s repast, was a
contented and unsuspecting group of travellers, who had commenced their
enterprise under the happiest auguries.

Still there was that, in the thoughtful eye and clouded brow of the
governess, as at times she turned her bewildered look on our
adventurer, which denoted a mind far from being at ease. She listened
to the gay and peculiar, because professional, sallies of the young
mariner, with smiles that were indulgent while they were melancholy, as
though his youthful spirits, exhibited as they were by touches of a
humour that was thoroughly and quaintly nautical recalled familiar, but
sad, images to her fancy Gertrude had less alloy in her pleasure. Home,
with a beloved and indulgent father, were before her; and she felt,
while the ship yielded to each fresh impulse of the wind, as if another
of those weary miles which had so long separated them, was already
conquered.

During these short but pleasant hours, the adventurer who had been so
oddly called into the command of the Bristol trader, appeared in a new
character. Though his conversation was characterized by the frank
manliness of a seaman, it was, nevertheless tempered by the delicacy of
perfect breeding. The beautiful mouth of Gertrude often struggled to
conceal the smiles which played around her lips and dimpled her cheeks,
like a soft air ruffling the surface of some limpid spring; and once or
twice, when the humour of Wilder came unexpectedly across her youthful
fancy, she was compelled to yield to the impulses of an irresistible
merriment.

One hour of the free intercourse of a ship can do more towards
softening the cold exterior in which the world encrusts the best of
human feelings, than weeks of the unmeaning ceremonies of the land. He
who has not felt this truth, would do well to distrust his own
companionable qualities. It would seem that man, when he finds himself
in the solitude of the ocean, feels the deepest how great is his
dependancy on others for happiness. Then it is that he yields to
sentiments with which he trifled, in the wantonness of abundance, and
is glad to seek relief in the sympathies of his kind. A community of
hazard makes a community of interest, whether person or property
composes the stake. Perhaps a meta-physical and a too literal, reasoner
might add, that, as in such situations each one is conscious the
condition and fortunes of his neighbour are the mere indexes of his
own, they acquire value in his eyes from their affinity to himself. If
this conclusion be true, Providence has happily so constituted the best
of the species, that the sordid feeling is too latent to be discovered;
and least of all was any one of the three, who passed the first hours
of the night around the cabin table of the “Royal Caroline,” to be
included in so selfish a class. The nature of the intercourse, which
had rendered the first hours of their acquaintance so singularly
equivocal, appeared to be forgotten in the freedom of the moment; or,
if it were remembered at all, it merely served to give the young seaman
additional interest in the eyes of the females, as much by the mystery
of the circumstances as by the evident concern he had manifested in
their behalf.

The bell had struck eight; and the hoarse long-drawn call, which
summoned the sleepers to the deck, was heard, before either of the
party seemed aware of the lateness of the hour.

“It is the middle watch,” said Wilder, smiling at he observed that
Gertrude started at the strange sounds, and sat listening, like a timid
doe that catches the note of the hunter’s horn. “We seamen are not
always musical, as you may judge by the strains of the spokesman on
this occasion. There are, however, ears in the ship to whom his notes
are even more discordant than to your own.”

“You mean the sleepers?” said Mrs Wyllys.

“I mean the watch below. There is nothing so sweet to the foremast
mariner as his sleep; for it is the most precarious of all his
enjoyments: on the other hand, perhaps, it is the most treacherous
companion the Commander knows.”

“And why is the rest of the superior so much less grateful than that of
the common man?”

“Because he pillows his head on responsibility.”

“You are young, Mr Wilder, for a trust like this you bear.”

“It is a service which makes us all prematurely old.”

“Then, why not quit it?” said Gertrude, a little hastily.

“Quit it!” he replied, gazing at her intently, for an instant, while he
suspended his reply. “It would be to me like quitting the air we
breathe.”

“Have you so long been devoted to your profession?” resumed Mrs Wyllys,
bending her thoughtful eye, from the ingenuous countenance of her
pupil, once more towards the features of him she addressed.

“I have reason to think I was born on the sea.”

“Think! You surely know your birth-place.”

“We are all of us dependant on the testimony of others,” said Wilder,
smiling, “for the account of that important event. My earliest
recollections are blended with the sight of the ocean, and I can hardly
say that I am a creature of the land at all.”

“You have, at least, been fortunate in those who have had the charge to
watch over your education and your younger days.”

“I have!” he answered, with strong emphasis. Then, after shading his
face an instant with his hands, he arose, and added, with a melancholy
smile: “And now to my last duty for the twenty four hours. Have you a
disposition to look at the night? So skilful and so stout a sailor
should not seek her birth, without passing an opinion on the weather.”

The governess took his offered arm, and, with his aid, ascended the
stairs of the cabin in silence, each seemingly finding sufficient
employment in meditation. She was followed by the more youthful, and
therefore more active Gertrude, who joined them as they stood together,
on the weather side of the quarter-deck.

The night was rather misty than dark. A full and bright moon had
arisen; but it pursued its path, through the heavens, behind a body of
dusky clouds, that was much too dense for any borrowed rays to
penetrate. Here and there, a straggling gleam appeared to find its way
through a covering of vapour less dense than the rest, and fell upon
the water like the dim illumination of a distant taper. As the wind was
fresh and easterly, the sea seemed to throw upward from its agitated
surface, more light, than it received; long lines of white, glittering
foam following each other, and lending, at moments, a distinctness to
the surface of the waters, that the heavens themselves wanted. The ship
was bowed low on its side; and, as it entered each rolling swell of the
ocean, a wide crescent of foam was driven ahead, as if the element
gambolled along its path. But, though the time was propitious, the wind
not absolutely adverse, and the heavens rather gloomy than threatening,
an uncertain (and, to a landsman, it might seem an unnatural) light
gave to the view a character of the wildest loneliness.

Gertrude shuddered, on reaching the deck, while she murmured an
expression of strange delight. Even Mrs Wyllys gazed upon the dark
waves, that were heaving and setting in the horizon, around which was
shed most of that radiance that seemed so supernatural, with a deep
conviction that she was now entirely in the hands of the Being who had
created the waters and the land. But Wilder looked upon the scene as
one fastens his gaze on a placid sky. To him the view possessed neither
novelty, nor dread, nor charm. Not so, however, with his more youthful
and slightly enthusiastic companion. After the first sensations of awe
had a little subsided, she exclaimed, in the fullest ardour of
admiration,—

“One such sight would repay a month of imprisonment in a ship! You must
find deep enjoyment in these scenes, Mr Wilder; you, who have them
always at command.”

“Yes, yes; there is pleasure to be found in them, without doubt, I
would that the wind had veer’d a point or two! I like not that sky, nor
yonder misty horizon, nor this breeze hanging so dead at east.”

“The vessel makes great progress,” returned Mrs Wyllys, calmly,
observing that the young man spoke without consciousness, and fearing
the effect of his words on the mind of her pupil. “If we are going on
our course, there is the appearance of a quick and prosperous passage.”

“True!” exclaimed Wilder, as though he had just become conscious of her
presence. “Quite probable and very true. Mr Earing, the air is getting
too heavy for that duck. Hand all your top-gallant sails, and haul the
ship up closer. Should the wind hang here at east-with-southing, we may
want what offing we can get.”

The mate replied in the prompt and obedient manner which seamen use to
their superiors; and; lifter scanning the signs of the weather for a
moment, he promptly proceeded to see the order executed. While the men
were on the yards furling the light canvas, the females walked apart,
leaving the young Commander to the uninterrupted discharge of his duty.
But Wilder, so far from deeming it necessary to lend his attention to
so ordinary a service, the moment after he had spoken, seemed perfectly
unconscious that the mandate had issued from his mouth. He stood on the
precise spot where the view of the ocean and the heavens had first
caught his eye, and his gaze still continued fastened on the aspect of
the two elements. His look was always in the direction of the wind,
which, though far from a gale, often fell upon the sails of the ship in
heavy and sullen puffs. After a long and anxious examination, the young
mariner muttered his thoughts to himself, and commenced pacing the deck
with rapid footsteps. Still he would make sudden and short pauses, and
again rivet his gaze on the point of the compass whence the blasts came
sweeping across the waste of waters; as though he distrusted the
weather, and would fain cause his keen glance to penetrate the gloom of
night, in order to relieve some painful doubts. At length his step
became arrested, in one of those quick turns that he made at each end
of his narrow walk. Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude stood nigh, and were
enabled to read something of the anxious character of his countenance,
as his eye became suddenly fastened on a distant point of the ocean,
though in a quarter exactly opposite to that whither his former looks
had been directed.

“Do you so much distrust the weather?” asked the governess, when she
thought his examination had endured long enough to become ominous of
evil.

“One looks not to leeward for the signs of the weather, in a breeze
like this,” was the answer.

“What see you, then, to fasten your eye on thus intently?”

Wilder slowly raised his arm, and was about to point with his finger,
when the limb suddenly fell again.

“It was delusion!” he muttered, turning quickly on his heel, and pacing
the deck still more rapidly than ever.

His companions watched the extraordinary, and apparently unconscious,
movements of the young Commander, with amazement, and not without a
little secret dismay. Their own looks wandered over the expanse of
troubled water to leeward, but nowhere could they see more than the
tossing element, capped with those ridges of garish foam which served
only to make the chilling waste more dreary and imposing.

“We see nothing,” said Gertrude, when Wilder again stopped in his walk,
and once more gazed, as before, on the seeming void.

“Look!” he answered, directing their eyes with his finger: “Is there
nothing there?”

“Nothing.”

“You look into the sea. Here, just where the heavens and the waters
meet; along that streak of misty light, into which the waves are
tossing themselves, like little hillocks on the land. There; now ’tis
smooth again, and my eyes did not deceive me. By heavens, it is a
ship!”

“Sail, ho!” shouted a voice, from out atop, which sounded in the ears
of our adventurer like the croaking of some sinister spirit, sweeping
across the deep.

“Whereaway?” was the stern demand.

“Here on our lee-quarter, sir,” returned the seaman at the top of his
voice. “I make her out a ship close-hauled; but, for an hour past, she
has looked more like mist than a vessel.”

“Ay, he is right,” muttered Wilder; “and yet ’tis a strange thing that
a ship should be just there.”

“And why stranger than that we are here?”

“Why!” said the young man, regarding Mrs Wyllys, who had put this
question, with a perfectly unconscious eye. “I say, ’tis strange she
should be there. I would she were steering northward.”

“But you give no reason. Are we always to have warnings from you,” she
continued, with a smile, “without reasons? Do you deem us so utterly
unworthy of a reason? or do you think us incapable of thought on a
subject connected with the sea? You have failed to make the essay, and
are too quick to decide. Try us this once. We may possibly deceive your
expectations.”

Wilder laughed faintly, and bowed, as if he recollected himself. Still
he entered into no explanation; but again turned his gaze on the
quarter of the ocean where the strange sail was said to be. The females
followed his example, but ever with the same want of success. As
Gertrude expressed her disappointment aloud, the soft tones of the
complainant found their way to the ears of our adventurer.

“You see the streak of dim light,” he said, again pointing across the
waste. “The clouds have lifted a little there, but the spray of the sea
is floating between us and the opening. Her spars look like the
delicate work of a spider, against the sky, and yet you see there are
all the proportions, with the three masts, of a noble ship.”

Aided by these minute directions, Gertrude at length caught a glimpse
of the faint object, and soon succeeded in giving the true direction to
the look of her governess also. Nothing was visible but the dim
outline, not unaptly described by Wilder himself assembling a spider’s
web.

“It must be a ship!” said Mrs Wyllys; “but at a vast distance.”

“Hum! Would it were farther. I could wish that vessel any where but
there.”

“And why not there? Have you reason to dread an enemy has been waiting
for us in this particular spot?”

“No: Still I like not her position. Would to God she were going north!”

“It is some vessel from the port of New York steering to his Majesty’s
islands in the Caribbean sea.”

“Not so,” said Wilder, shaking his head; “no vessel, from under the
heights of Never-sink, could gain that offing with a wind like this!”

“It is then some ship going into the same place, or perhaps bound for
one of the bays of the Middle Colonies!”

“Her road would be too plain to be mistaken. See; the stranger is close
upon a wind.”

“It may be a trader, or a cruiser coming _from_ one of the places I
have named.”

“Neither. The wind has had too much northing, the last two days, for
that.”

“It is a vessel that we have overtaken, and which has come out of the
waters of Long Island Sound.”

“That, indeed, may we yet hope,” muttered Wilder in a smothered voice.

The governess, who had put the foregoing questions in order to extract
from the Commander of the “Caroline” the information he so
pertinaciously withheld, had now exhausted all her own knowledge on the
subject, and was compelled to await his further pleasure in the matter,
or resort to the less equivocal means of direct interrogation. But the
busy state of Wilder’s thoughts left her no immediate opportunity to
pursue the subject. He soon summoned the officer of the watch to his
councils, and they consulted together, apart, for many minutes. The
hardy, but far from quick witted, seaman who tilled the second station
in the ship saw nothing so remarkable in the appearance of a strange
sail, in the precise spot where the dim and nearly aerial image of the
unknown vessel was still visible; nor did he hesitate to pronounce her
some honest trader bent, like themselves, on her purpose of lawful
commerce. It would seem that his Commander thought otherwise, as will
appear by the short dialogue that passed between them.

“Is it not extraordinary that she should be just there?” demanded
Wilder, after they had, each in turn, made a closer examination of the
faint object, by the aid of an excellent night-glass.

“She would be better off, here,” returned the literal seaman, who only
had an eye for the nautical situation of the stranger; “and we should
be none the worse for being a dozen leagues more to the eastward,
ourselves. If the wind holds here at east-by-south-half-south we shall
have need of all that offing. I got jammed once between Hatteras and
the Gulf”—

“But, do you not perceive that she is where no vessel could or ought to
be, unless she has run exactly the same course with ourselves?”
interrupted Wilder. “Nothing, from any harbour south of New York, could
have such northing, as the wind has been; while nothing, from the
Colony of York would stand on this tack, if bound east; or would be
here, if going southward.”

The plain-going ideas of the honest mate were open to a reasoning which
the reader may find a little obscure: for his mind contained a sort of
chart of the ocean, to which he could at any time refer, with a proper
discrimination between the various winds, and all the different points
of the compass. When properly directed, he was not slow to see, as a
mariner, the probable justice of his young Commander’s inferences; and
then wonder, in its turn began to take possession of his more obtuse
faculties.

“It is downright unnatural, truly, that the fellow should be there!” he
replied, shaking his head, but meaning no more than that it was
entirely out of the order of nautical propriety; “I see the philosophy
of what you say, Captain Wilder; and little do I know how to explain
it. It is a ship, to a mortal certainty!”

“Of that there is no doubt. But a ship most strangely placed!”

“I doubled the Good-Hope in the year ’46,” continued the other, “and
saw a vessel lying, as it might be, here, on our weather-bow—which is
just opposite to this fellow, since he is on our lee-quarter—but there
I saw a ship standing for an hour across our fore-foot, and yet, though
we set the azimuth, not a degree did he budge, starboard or larboard,
during all that time, which, as it was heavy weather, was, to say the
least, something out of the common order.”

“It was remarkable!” returned Wilder, with an air so vacant, as to
prove that he rather communed with himself than attended to his
companion.

“There are mariners who say that the flying Dutchman cruises off that
Cape, and that he often gets on the weather side of a stranger, and
bears down upon him, like a ship about to lay him aboard. Many is the
King’s cruiser, as they say, that has turned her hands up from a sweet
sleep, when the look-outs have seen a double decker coming down in the
night, with ports up, and batteries lighted but then this can’t be any
such craft as the Dutchman, since she is, at the most, no more than a
large sloop of war, if a cruiser at all.”

“No, no,” said Wilder, “this can never be the Dutchman.”

“Yon vessel shows no lights; and, for that matter, she has such a misty
look, that one might well question its being a ship at all. Then,
again, the Dutchman is always seen to windward, and the strange sail we
have here lies broad upon our lee-quarter!”

“It is no Dutchman,” said Wilder, drawing a long breath, like a man
awaking from a trance. “Main topmast-cross-trees, there!”

The man who was stationed aloft answered to this hail in the customary
manner, the short conversation that succeeded being necessarily
maintained in shouts, rather than in speeches.

“How long have you seen the stranger?” was the first demand of Wilder.

“I have just come aloft, sir; but the man I relieved tells me more than
an hour.”

“And has the man you relieved come down? or what is that I see sitting
on the lee side of the mast-head?”

“’Tis Bob Brace, sir; who says he cannot sleep, and so he stays upon
the yard to keep me company.”

“Send the man down. I would speak to him.”

While the wakeful seaman was descending the rigging, the two officers
continued silent, each seeming to find sufficient occupation in musing
on what had already passed.

“And why are you not in your hammock?” said Wilder, a little sternly,
to the man who, in obedience to his order, had descended to the
quarter-deck.

“I am not sleep-bound, your Honour, and therefore I had the mind to
pass another hour aloft.”

“And why are you, who have two night-watches to keep already, so
willing to enlist in a third?”

“To own the truth, sir, my mind has been a little misgiving about this
passage, since the moment we lifted our anchor.”

Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude, who were auditors, insensibly drew nigher, to
listen, with a species of interest which betrayed itself by the
thrilling of nerves, and an accelerated movement of the pulse.

“And you have your doubts, sir!” exclaimed the Captain, in a tone of
slight contempt. “Pray, may I ask what you have seen, on board here, to
make you distrust the ship.”

“No harm in asking, your Honour,” returned the seaman, crushing the hat
he held between two hands that had a gripe like a couple of vices, “and
so I hope there is none in answering. I pulled an oar in the boat after
the old man this morning, and I cannot say I like the manner in which
he got from the chase. Then, there is something in the ship to leeward
that comes athwart my fancy like a drag, and I confess, your Honour,
that I should make but little head-way in a nap, though I should try
the swing of a hammock.”

“How long is it since you made the ship to leeward?” gravely demanded
Wilder.

“I will not swear that a real living ship has been made out at all,
sir. Something I did see, just before the bell struck seven, and there
it is, just as clear and just as dim, to be seen now by them that have
good eyes.”

“And how did she bear when you first saw her?”

“Two or three points more toward the beam than it is now.”

“Then we are passing her!” exclaimed Wilder, with a pleasure too
evident to be concealed.

“No, your Honour, no. You forget, sir, the ship has come closer to the
wind since the middle watch was set.”

“True,” returned his young Commander, in a tone of disappointment;
“true, very true. And her bearing has not changed since you first made
her?”

“Not by compass, sir. It is a quick boat that, or would never hold such
way with the ‘Royal Caroline,’ and that too upon a stiffened bow-line,
which every body knows is the real play of this ship.”

“Go, get you to your hammock. In the morning we may have a better look
at the fellow.”

“And—you hear me, sir,” added the attentive mate, “do not keep the
men’s eyes open below, with a tale as long as the short cable, but take
your own natural rest, and leave all others, that have clear
consciences, to do the same.”

“Mr Earing,” said Wilder, as the seaman reluctantly proceeded towards
his place of rest, “we will bring the ship upon the other tack, and get
more easting, while the land is so far from us. This course will be
setting us upon Hatteras. Besides”——

“Yes, sir,” the mate replied, observing his superior to hesitate, “as
you were saying,—besides, no one can foretel the length of a gale, nor
the real quarter it may come from.”

“Precisely. No one can answer for the weather. The men are scarcely in
their hammocks; turn them up at once, sir, before their eyes are heavy,
and we will bring the ship’s head the other way.”

The mate instantly sounded the well-known cry, which summoned the watch
below to the assistance of their shipmates on the deck. Little delay
occurred, and not a word was uttered, but the short, authoritative
mandates which Wilder saw fit to deliver from his own lips. No longer
pressed up against the wind, the ship, obedient to her helm, gracefully
began to incline her head from the waves, and to bring the wind abeam.
Then, instead of breasting and mounting the endless hillocks, like a
being that toiled heavily along its path, she fell into the trough of
the sea, from which she issued like a courser, who, have conquered an
ascent, shoots along the track with redoubled velocity. For an instant
the wind appeared to have lulled, though the wide ridge of foam which
rolled along on each side the vessel’s bows, sufficiently proclaimed
that she was skimming lightly before it. In another moment, the tall
spars began to incline again to the west, and the vessel came swooping
up to the wind, until her plunges and shocks against the seas were
renewed as violently as before. When every yard and sheet were properly
trimmed to meet the new position of the vessel, Wilder turned anxiously
to get a glimpse of the stranger. A minute was lost in ascertaining the
precise spot where he ought to appear; for, in such a chaos of water,
and with no guide but the judgment, the eye was apt to deceive itself,
by referring to the nearer and more familiar objects by which the
spectator was surrounded.

“The stranger has vanished!” said Earing, with a voice in whose tones
mental relief and distrust were both, at the same moment, oddly
manifesting themselves.

“He should be on this quarter; but I confess I see him not!”

“Ay, ay, sir; this is the way that the midnight cruiser off the Hope is
said to come and go. There are men who have seen that vessel shut in by
a fog, in as fine a star-light night as was ever met in a southern
latitude. But then this cannot be the Dutchman, since it is so many
long leagues from the pitch of the Cape to the coast of North-America.

“Here he lies; and, by heaven! he has already gone about!” cried
Wilder.

The truth of what our young adventurer had just affirmed was indeed now
sufficiently evident to the eye of any seaman. The same diminutive and
misty tracery, as before, was to be seen on the light background of the
threatening horizon, looking not unlike the faintest shadows cast upon
some brighter surface by the deception of the phantasmagoria. But to
the mariners, who so well knew how to distinguish between the different
lines of her masts, it was very evident that her course had been
suddenly and dexterously changed, and that she was now steering no
longer to the south and west, but, like themselves, holding her way
towards the north-east. The fact appeared to make a sensible impression
on them all; though probably, had their reasons been sifted, they would
have been found to be entirely different.

“That ship has truly tacked!” Earing exclaimed, after a long,
meditative pause, and with a voice in which distrust, or rather awe,
was beginning to get the ascendancy. “Long as I have followed the sea,
have I never before seen a vessel tack against such a head-beating sea.
He must have been all shaking in the wind, when we gave him the last
look, or we should not have lost sight of him.”

“A lively and quick-working vessel might do it,” said Wilder;
“especially if strong handed.”

“Ay, the hand of Beelzebub is always strong; and a light job would he
make of it, in forcing even a dull craft to sail.”

“Mr Earing,” interrupted Wilder, “we will pack upon the ‘Caroline,’ and
try our sailing with this taunting stranger. Get the main tack aboard,
and set the top-gallant-sail.”

The slow-minded mate would have remonstrated against the order, had he
dared; but there was that, in the calm, subdued, but deep tones of his
young Commander, which admonished him of the hazard. He was not wrong,
however, in considering the duty he was now to perform as one not
without some risk. The ship was already moving under quite as much
canvas as he deemed it prudent to show at such an hour, and with so
many threatening symptoms of heavier weather hanging about the horizon.
The necessary orders were, however, repeated as promptly as they had
been given. The seamen had already begun to consider the stranger, and
to converse among themselves concerning his appearance and situation;
and they obeyed with an alacrity that might perhaps have been traced to
a secret but common wish to escape from his vicinity. The sails were
successively and speedily set; and then each man folded his arms, and
stood gazing steadily and intently at the shadowy object to leeward, in
order to witness the effect of the change.

The “Royal Caroline” seemed, like her crew, sensible of the necessity
of increasing her speed. As she felt the pressure of the broad sheets
of canvas that had just been distended, the ship bowed lower, and
appeared to recline on the bed of water which rose under her lee nearly
to the scuppers. On the other side, the dark planks, and polished
copper, lay bare for many feet, though often washed by the waves that
came sweeping along her length, green and angrily, still capped, as
usual, with crests of lucid foam. The shocks, as the vessel tilted
against the billows, were becoming every moment more severe; and, from
each encounter, a bright cloud of spray arose, which either fell
glittering on the deck, or drove, in brilliant mist, across the rolling
water, far to leeward.

Wilder long watched the ship, with an excited mien, but with all the
intelligence of a seaman. Once or twice, when she trembled, and
appeared to stop, in her violent encounter with a wave, as suddenly as
though she had struck a rock, his lips severed, and he was about to
give the order to reduce the sail; but a glance at the misty looking
image on the western horizon seemed ever to cause his mind to change
its purpose. Like a desperate adventurer, who had cast his fortunes on
some hazardous experiment, he appeared to await the issue with a
resolution that was as haughty as it was unconquerable.

“That topmast is bending like a whip,” muttered the careful Earing, at
his elbow.

“Let it go; we have spare spars to put in its place,” was the answer.

“I have always found the ‘Caroline’ leaky after she has been strained
by driving her against the sea.”

“We have our pumps.”

“True, sir; but, in my poor judgment, it is idle to think of outsailing
a craft that the devil commands if he does not altogether handle it.”

“One will never know that, Mr Earing, till he tries.”

“We gave the Dutchman a chance of that sort; and, I must say, we not
only had the most canvas spread, but much the best of the wind: And
what good did it all do? there he lay, under his three topsails driver,
and jib; and we, with studding sails alow and aloft, couldn’t alter his
bearing a foot.”

“The Dutchman is never seen in a northern latitude.”

“Well, I cannot say he is,” returned Earing, in a sort of compelled
resignation; “but he who has put that flyer off the Cape may have found
the cruise so profitable, as to wish to send another ship into these
seas.”

Wilder made no reply. He had either humoured the superstitious
apprehension of his mate enough, or his mind was too intent on its
principal object, to dwell longer on a foreign subject.

Notwithstanding the seas that met her advance, in such quick succession
as greatly to retard her progress the Bristol trader had soon toiled
her way through a league of the troubled element. At every plunge she
took, the bow divided a mass of water, that appeared, at each instant,
to become more vast and more violent in its rushing; and more than once
the struggling hull was nearly buried forward, in some wave which it
had equal difficulty in mounting or penetrating.

The mariners narrowly watched the smallest movements of their vessel.
Not a man left her deck, for hours. The superstitious awe, which had
taken such deep hold of the untutored faculties of the chief mate, had
not been slow to extend its influence to the meanest of her crew. Even
the accident which had befallen their former Commander, and the sudden
and mysterious manner in which the young officer, who now trod the
quarter-deck, so singularly firm and calm, under circumstances deemed
so imposing, had their influence in heightening the wild impression The
impunity with which the “Caroline” bore such a press of canvas, under
the circumstances in which she was placed, added to their kindling
admiration; and, ere Wilder had determined, in his own mind, on the
powers of his ship, in comparison with those of the vessel that so
strangely hung in the horizon, he was himself becoming the subject of
unnatural and revolting suspicions to his own crew.




Chapter XV.

“I’ the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show?”

_Macbeth._


The division of employment that is found in Europe, and which brings,
in its train, a peculiar and corresponding limitation of ideas, has
never yet existed in our country. If our artisans have, in consequence
been less perfect in their several handicrafts, they have ever been
remarkable for intelligence of a more general character. Superstition
is however, a quality that seems indigenous to the ocean. Few common
mariners are exempt from its influence, in a greater or less degree;
though it is found to exist, among the seamen of different people, in
forms that are tempered by their respective national habits and
peculiar opinions. The sailor of the Baltic has his secret rites, and
his manner of propitiating the gods of the wind; the Mediterranean
mariner tears his hair, and kneels before the shrine of some impotent
saint, when his own hand might better do the service he implores; while
the more skilful Englishman sees the spirits of the dead in the storm,
and hears the cries of a lost messmate in the gusts that sweep the
waste he navigates. Even the better instructed and still more reasoning
American has not been able to shake entirely off the secret influence
of a sentiment that seems the concomitant of his condition.

There is a majesty, in the might of the great deep that has a tendency
to keep open the avenues of that dependant credulity which more or less
besets the mind of every man, however he may have fortified his
intellect by thought. With the firmament above him, and wandering on an
interminable waste of water, the less gifted seaman is tempted, at
every step of his pilgrimage, to seek the relief of some propitious
omen. The few which are supported by scientific causes give support to
the many that have their origin only in his own excited and doubting
temperament. The gambols of the dolphin, the earnest and busy passage
of the porpoise, the ponderous sporting of the unwieldy whale, and the
screams of the marine birds, have all, like the signs of the ancient
soothsayers, their attendant consequences of good or evil. The
confusion between things which are explicable, and things which are
not, gradually brings the mind of the mariner to a state in which any
exciting and unnatural sentiment is welcome, if it be or no other
reason than that, like the vast element on which he passes his life, it
bears the impression of what is thought a supernatural, because it is
an incomprehensible, power.

The crew of the “Royal Caroline” had not even the advantage of being
natives of a land where necessity and habit have united to bring every
man’s faculties into exercise, to a certain extent at least. They were
all from that distant island that has been, and still continues to be,
the hive of nations, which are probably fated to carry her name to a
time when the sight of her fallen power shall be sought as a curiosity,
like the remains of a city in a desert.

The whole events of that day of which we are now writing had a tendency
to arouse the latent superstition of these men. It has already been
said, that the calamity which had befallen their former Commander, and
the manner in which a stranger had succeeded to his authority, had
their influence in increasing their disposition to doubt. The sail to
leeward appeared most inopportunely for the character of our
adventurer, who had not yet enjoyed a fitting opportunity to secure the
confidence of his inferiors, before such untoward circumstances
occurred as threatened to deprive him of it for ever.

There has existed but one occasion for introducing to the reader the
mate who filled the station in the ship next to that of Earing. He was
called Nighthead; a name that was, in some measure, indicative of a
certain misty obscurity that beset his superior member. The qualities
of his mind may be appreciated by the few reflections he saw fit to
make on the escape of the old mariner whom Wilder had intended to visit
with a portion of his indignation. This individual, as he was but one
degree removed from the common men in situation, so was he every way
qualified to maintain that association with the crew which was, in some
measure, necessary between them. His influence among them was
commensurate to his opportunities of intercourse, and his sentiments
were very generally received with a portion of that deference which is
thought to be due to the opinions of an oracle.

After the ship had been worn, and during the time that Wilder, with a
view to lose sight of his unwelcome neighbour, was endeavouring to urge
her through the seas in the manner already described, this stubborn and
mystified tar remained in the waist of the vessel, surrounded by a few
of the older and more experienced seamen, holding converse on the
remarkable appearance of the phantom to leeward, and of the
extraordinary manner in which their unknown officer saw fit to attest
the enduring qualities of their own vessel. We shall commence our
relation of the dialogue at a point where Nighthead saw fit to
discontinue his distant inuendos, in order to deal more directly with
the subject he had under discussion.

“I have heard it said, by older sea-faring men than any in this ship,”
he continued, “that the devil has been known to send one of his mates
aboard a lawful trader, to lead her astray among shoals and quicksands,
in order that he might make a wreck, and get his share of the salvage,
among the souls of the people. What man can say who gets into the
cabin, when an unknown name stands first in the shipping list of a
vessel?”

“The stranger is shut in by a cloud!” exclaimed one of the mariners,
who, while he listened to the philosophy of his officer, still kept an
eye riveted on the mysterious object to leeward.

“Ay, ay; it would occasion no surprise to see that craft steering into
the moon! Luck is like a fly-block and its yard: when one goes up, the
other comes down. They say the red-coats ashore have had their turn of
fortune, and it is time we honest seamen look out for our squalls. I
have doubled the Horn, brothers, in a King’s ship, and I have seen the
bright cloud that never sets, and have held a living corposant in my
own hand: But these are things which any man may look on, who will go
upon a yard in a gale, or ship aboard a Southseaman: Still, I pronounce
it uncommon for a vessel to see her shadow in the haze, as we have ours
at this moment for there it comes again!—hereaway, between the
after-shroud and the backstay—or for a trader to carry sail in a
fashion that would make every knee in a bomb-ketch work like a
tooth-brush fiddling across a passenger’s mouth, after he had had a
smart bout with the sea sickness.”

“And yet the lad holds the ship in hand,” said the oldest of all the
seamen, who kept his gaze fastened on the proceedings of Wilder; “he is
driving her through it in a mad manner, I will allow; but yet, so far,
he has not parted a yarn.”

“Yarns!” repeated the mate, in a tone of strong contempt; “what signify
yarns, when the whole cable is to snap, and in such a fashion as to
leave no hope for the anchor, except in a buoy rope? Hark ye, old Bill;
the devil never finishes his jobs by halves: What is to happen will
happen bodily; and no easing-off, as if you were lowering the Captain’s
lady into a boat, and he on deck to see fair play.”

“Mr Nighthead knows how to keep a ship’s reckoning in all weathers!”
said another, whose manner sufficiently announced the dependance he
himself placed on the capacity of the second mate.

“And no credit to me for the same. I have seen all services, and
handled every rig, from a lugger to a double-decker! Few men can say
more in their own favour than myself; for the little I know has been
got by much hardship, and small schooling. But what matters
information, or even seamanship against witchcraft, or the workings of
one whom I don’t choose to name, seeing that there is no use in
offending any gentleman unnecessarily? I say, brothers that this ship
is packed upon in a fashion that no prudent seaman ought to, or would,
allow.”

A general murmur announced that most, if not all, of his hearers
accorded in his opinion.

“Let us examine calmly and reasonably, and in a manner becoming
enlightened Englishmen, into the whole state of the case,” the mate
continued, casting an eye obliquely over his shoulder, perhaps to make
sure that the individual, of whose displeasure he stood in such
salutary awe, was not actually at his elbow. “We are all of us, to a
man, native-born islanders, without a drop of foreign blood among us;
not so much as a Scotchman or an Irishman in the ship. Let us therefore
look into the philosophy of this affair, with that sort of judgment
which becomes our breeding. In the first place, here is honest Nicholas
Nichols slips from this here water-cask, and breaks me a leg! Now,
brothers, I’ve known men to fall from tops and yards, and lighter
damage done. But what matters it, to a certain person, how far he
throws his man, since he has only to lift a finger to get us all
hanged? Then, comes me aboard here a stranger, with a look of the
colonies about him, and none of your plain-dealing, out-and-out, smooth
English faces, such as a man can cover with the flat of his hand.”—

“The lad is well enough to the eye,” interrupted the old mariner.

“Ay, therein lies the whole deviltry of this matter! He is
good-looking, I grant ye; but it is not such good-looking as an
Englishman loves. There is a meaning about him that I don’t like; for I
never likes too much meaning in a man’s countenance, seeing that it is
not always easy to understand what he would be doing. Then, this
stranger gets to be Master of the ship, or, what is the same thing,
next to Master; while he who should be on deck giving his orders, in a
time like this, is lying in his birth unable to tack himself, much less
to put the vessel about; and yet no man can say how the thing came to
pass.”

“He drove a bargain with the consignee for the station, and right glad
did the cunning merchant seem to get so tight a youth to take charge of
the ‘Caroline.’”

“Ah! a merchant is, like the rest of us, made of nothing better than
clay; and, what is worse, it is seldom that, in putting him together,
he is dampened with salt water. Many is the trader that has douzed his
spectacles, and shut his account-books, to step aside to over-reach his
neighbour, and then come back to find that he has over-reached himself.
Mr Bale, no doubt, thought he was doing the clever thing for the
owners, when he shipped this Mr Wilder; but then, perhaps, he did not
know that the vessel was sold to ——— It becomes a plain-going seaman to
have a respect for all he sails under; so I will not, unnecessarily,
name the person who, I believe, has got, whether he came by it in a
fair purchase or not, no small right in this vessel.”

“I have never seen a ship got out of irons more handsomely than he
handled the ‘Caroline’ this very morning.”

Nighthead now indulged in a low, but what to his listeners appeared to
be an exceedingly meaning, laugh.

“When a ship has a certain sort of Captain, one is not to be surprised
at any thing,” he answered the instant his significant merriment had
ceased. “For my own part, I shipped to go from Bristol to the Carolinas
and Jamaica, touching at Newport out and home; and I will say, boldly,
I have no wish to go any where else. As to backing the ‘Caroline’ from
her awkward birth alongside the slaver, why it was well done; most too
well for so young a manner. Had I done the thing myself, it could not
have been much better. But what think you, brothers of the old man in
the skiff? There was a chase, and an escape, such as few old sea-dogs
have the fortune to behold! I have heard of a smuggler that was chased
a hundred times by his Majesty’s cutters, in the chops of the Channel,
and which always had a fog handy to run into, but out of which no man
could truly say he ever saw her come again! This skiff may have plied
between the land and that Guernseyman, for any thing I know to the
contrary; but it is not a boat I wish to pull a scull in.”

“That _was_ a remarkable flight!” exclaimed the elder seaman, whose
faith in the character of our adventurer began to give way gradually,
before such an accumulation of testimony.

“I call it so; though other men may possibly know better than I, who
have only followed the water five-and-thirty years. Then, here is the
sea getting up, in an unaccountable manner! and look at these rags of
clouds, which darken the heavens! and yet there is light enough, coming
from the ocean, for a good scholar to read by!”

“I’ve often seen the weather as it is now.”

“Ay, who has not? It is seldom that any man, let him come from what
part he will, makes his first voyage as Captain. Let who will be out
to-night upon the water, I’ll engage he has been there before. I have
seen worse looking skies, and even worse looking water, than this; but
I never knew any good come of either. The night I was wreck’d in the
bay of”——

“In the waist there!” cried the calm, authoritative tones of Wilder.

Had a warning voice arisen from the turbulent and rushing ocean itself,
it would not have sounded more alarming, in the startled ears of the
conscious seamen, than this sudden hail. Their young Commander found it
necessary to repeat it, before even Nighthead, the proper and official
spokesman, could muster resolution to answer.

“Get the fore-top-gallant-sail on the ship, sir,” continued Wilder,
when the customary reply let him know that he had been heard.

The mate and his companions regarded each other, for a moment, in dull
admiration; and many a melancholy shake of the head was exchanged,
before one of the party threw himself into the weather-rigging, and
proceeded aloft, with a doubting mind, in order to loosen the sail in
question.

There was certainly enough, in the desperate manner with which Wilder
pressed the canvas on the vessel, to excite distrust, either of his
intentions or judgment, in the opinions of men less influenced by
superstition than those it was now his lot to command. It had long been
apparent to Earing, and his more ignorant, and consequently more
obstinate, brother officer, that their young superior had the same
desire to escape from the spectral-looking ship, which so strangely
followed their movements, as they had themselves. They only differed in
the mode; but this difference was so very material, that the two mates
consulted together apart, and then Earing, something stimulated by the
hardy opinions of his coadjutor, approached his Commander, with the
determination of delivering the results of their united judgments, with
that sort of directness which he thought the occasion now demanded. But
there was that in the steady eye and imposing mien of Wilder, that
caused him to touch on the dangerous subject with a discretion and
circumlocution that were a little remarkable for the individual. He
stood watching the effect of the sail recently spread for several
minutes, before he even presumed to open his mouth. But a terrible
encounter, between the vessel and a wave that lifted its angry crest
apparently some dozen feet above the approaching bows, gave him courage
to proceed, by admonishing him afresh of the danger of continuing
silent.

“I do not see that we drop the stranger, though the ship is wallowing
through the water so heavily,” he commenced, determined to be as
circumspect as possible in his advances.

Wilder bent another of his frequent glances on the misty object in the
horizon, and then turned his frowning eye towards the point whence the
wind proceeded, as if he would defy its heaviest blasts; he, however,
made no answer.

“We have ever found the crew discontented at the pumps, sir,” resumed
the other, after a pause sufficient for the reply he in vain expected;
“I need not tell an officer, who knows his duty so well, that seamen
rarely love their pumps.”

“Whatever I may find necessary to order, Mr Earing, this ship’s company
will find it necessary to execute.”

There was a deep settled air of authority, in the manner with which
this tardy answer was given, that did not fail of its impression.
Earing recoiled a step, with a submissive manner, and affected to be
lost in consulting the driving masses of the clouds; then, summoning
his resolution, he attempted to renew the attack in a different
quarter.

“Is it your deliberate opinion, Captain Wilder,” he said, using the
title to which the claim of our adventurer might well be questioned,
with a view to propitiate him; “is it then your deliberate opinion that
the ‘Royal Caroline’ can, by any human means, be made to drop yonder
vessel?”

“I fear not,” returned the young man, drawing a breath so long, that
all his secret concern seemed struggling in his breast for utterance.

“And, sir, with proper submission to your better education and
authority in this ship, I _know_ not. I have often seen these matches
tried in my time; and well do I know that nothing is gained by
straining a vessel, with the hope of getting to windward of one of
these flyers!”

“Take you the glass, Earing, and tell me under what canvas the stranger
holds his way, and what may be his distance,” said Wilder,
thoughtfully, and without appearing to advert at all to what the other
had just observed.

The honest and well-meaning mate deposed his hat on the quarter-deck,
and, with an air of great respect, did as he was desired. Nor did he
deem it necessary to give a precipitate answer to either of the
interrogatories. When, however, his look had been long, grave, and
deeply absorbed, he closed the glass with the palm of his broad hand,
and replied, with the manner of one whose opinion was sufficiently
matured.

“If yonder sail had been built and fitted like other mortal craft,” he
said, “I should not be backward in pronouncing her a full-rigged ship,
under three single-reefed topsails, courses, spanker, and jib.”

“Has she no more?”

“To that I would qualify, provided an opportunity were given me to make
sure that she is, in all respects, as other vessels are.”

“And yet, Earing, with all this press of canvas, by the compass we have
not left her a foot.”

“Lord, sir,” returned the mate, shaking his head, like one who was well
convinced of the folly of such efforts, “if you should split every
cloth in the main-course, by carrying on the ship you will never alter
the bearings of that craft an inch, till the sun rises! Then, indeed,
such as have eyes, that are good enough, might perhaps see her sailing
about among the clouds; though it has never been my fortune be it bad
or be it good, to fall in with one of these cruisers after the day has
fairly dawned.”

“And the distance?” said Wilder; “you have not yet spoken of her
distance.”

“That is much as people choose to measure. She may be here, nigh enough
to toss a biscuit into our tops; or she may be there, where she seems
to be, hull down in the horizon.”

“But, if where she seems to be?”

“Why, she _seems_ to be a vessel of about six hundred tons; and,
judging from appearances only, a man might be tempted to say she was a
couple of leagues, more or less, under our lee.”

“I put her at the same! Six miles to windward is not a little
advantage, in a hard chase. By heavens, Earing, I’ll drive the
‘Caroline’ out of water but I’ll leave him!”

“That might be done, if the ship had wings like a curlew, or a
sea-gull; but, as it is, I think we are more likely to drive her
under.”

“She bears her canvas well, so far. You know not what the boat can do,
when urged.”

“I have seen her sailed in all weathers, Captain Wilder, but”——

His mouth was suddenly closed. A vast black wave reared itself between
the ship and the eastern horizon, and came rolling onward, seeming to
threaten to ingulf all before it. Even Wilder watched the shock with
breathless anxiety, conscious, for the moment that he had exceeded the
bounds of sound discretion in urging his ship so powerfully against
such a mass of water. The sea broke a few fathoms from the bows of the
“Caroline,” and sent its surge in a flood of foam upon her decks. For
half a minute the forward part of the vessel disappeared, as though,
unable to mount the swell, it were striving to go through it, and then
she heavily emerged, gemmed with a million of the scintillating insects
of the ocean. The ship had stopped, trembling in every joint,
throughout her massive and powerful frame, like some affrighted
courser; and, when she resumed her course, it was with a moderation
that appeared to warn those who governed her movements of their
indiscretion.

Earing faced his Commander in silence, perfectly conscious that nothing
he could utter contained an argument like this. The seamen no longer
hesitated to mutter their disapprobation aloud, and many a prophetic
opinion was ventured concerning the consequences of such reckless
risks. To all this Wilder turned a deaf or an insensible ear. Firm in
his own secret purpose, he would have braved a greater hazard to
accomplish his object. But a distinct though smothered shriek, from the
stern of the vessel, reminded him of the fears of others. Turning
quickly on his heel, he approached the still trembling Gertrude and her
governess, who had both been, throughout the whole of those long and
tedious hours, inobtrusive but deeply interested, observers of his
smallest movements.

“The vessel bore that shock so well, I have great reliance on her
powers,” he said in a soothing voice, but with words that were intended
to lull her into a blind security. “With a firm ship, a thorough seaman
is never at a loss!”

“Mr Wilder,” returned the governess, “I have seen much of this terrible
element on which you live. It is therefore vain to think of deceiving
me I know that you are urging the ship beyond what is usual. Have you
sufficient motive for this hardihood?”

“Madam,—I have!”

“And is it, like so many of your motives, to continue locked for ever
in your own breast? or may we, who are equal participators in its
consequences, claim to share equally in the reason?”

“Since you know so much of the profession,” returned the young man,
slightly laughing, but in tones that were rendered perhaps more
alarming by the sounds produced in the unnatural effort, “you need not
be told, that, in order to get a ship to windward, it is necessary to
spread her canvas.”

“You can, at least, answer one of my questions more directly: Is this
wind sufficiently favourable to pass the dangerous shoals of the
Hatteras?”

“I doubt it.”

“Then, why not go to the place whence we came?”

“Will you consent to return?” demanded the youth, with the swiftness of
thought.

“I would go to my father,” said Gertrude, with a rapidity so nearly
resembling his own, that the ardent girl appeared to want breath to
utter the little she said.

“And I am willing, Mr Wilder, to abandon the ship entirely,” calmly
resumed the governess. “I require no explanation of all your mysterious
warnings; restore us to our friends in Newport, and no further
questions shall ever be asked.”

“It might be done!” muttered our adventurer; “it might be done!—A few
busy hours would do it, with this wind.—Mr Earing!”—

The mate was instantly at his elbow. Wilder pointed to the dim object
to leeward; and, handing him the glass, desired that he would take
another view. Each looked, in his turn, long and closely.

“He shows no more sail!” said the Commander impatiently, when his own
prolonged gaze was ended.

“Not a cloth, sir. But what matters it, to such a craft, how much
canvas is spread, or how the wind blows?”

“Earing, I think there is too much southing in this breeze; and there
is more brewing in yonder streak of dusky clouds on our beam. Let the
ship fall off a couple of points, or more, and take the strain off the
spars, by a pull upon the weather braces.”

The simple-minded mate heard the order with an astonishment he did not
care to conceal. There needed no explanation, to teach his experienced
faculties that the effect would be to go over the same track they had
just passed, and that it was, in substance abandoning the objects of
the voyage. He presumed to defer his compliance, in order to
remonstrate.

“I hope there is no offence for an elderly seaman, like myself, Captain
Wilder, in venturing an opinion on the weather,” he said. “When the
pocket of the owner is interested, my judgment approves of going about,
for I have no taste for land that the wind blows on, instead of off.
But, by easing the ship with a reef or two, she would be jogging sea
ward; and all we gain would be clear gain; because it is so much off
the Hatteras. Besides, who can say that to-morrow, or the next day, we
sha’n’t have, a puff out of America, here at north-west?”

“A couple of points fall off, and a pull upon your weather braces,”
said Wilder, with startling quickness.

It would have exceeded the peaceful and submissive temperament of the
honest Earing, to have delayed any longer. The orders were given to the
inferiors; and, as a matter of course, they were obeyed—though
ill-suppressed and portentous sounds of discontent at the undetermined,
and seemingly unreasonable changes in their officer’s mind might been
heard issuing from the mouths of Nighthead, and other veterans of the
crew.

But to all these symptoms of disaffection Wilder remained, as before,
utterly indifferent. If he heard them at all, he either disdained to
yield them any notice, or, guided by a temporizing policy, he chose to
appear unconscious of their import. In the mean time, the vessel, like
a bird whose wing had wearied with struggling against the tempest, and
which inclines from the gale to dart along an easier course, glided
swiftly away, quartering the crests of the waves, or sinking gracefully
into their troughs, as she yielded to the force of a wind that was now
made to be favourable. The sea rolled on, in a direction that was no
longer adverse to her course; and, as she receded from the breeze, the
quantity of sail she had spread was no longer found trying to her
powers of endurance. Still she had, in the opinion of all her crew,
quite enough canvas exposed to a night of such a portentous aspect. But
not so, in the judgment of the stranger who was charged with the
guidance of her destinies. In a voice that still admonished his
inferiors of the danger of disobedience he commanded several broad
sheets of studding-sails to be set, in quick succession. Urged by these
new impulses, the ship went careering over the waves; leaving a train
of foam, in her track, that rivalled, in its volume and brightness, the
tumbling summit of the largest swell.

When sail after sail had been set, until even Wilder was obliged to
confess to himself that the “Royal Caroline,” staunch as she was, would
bear no more, our adventurer began to pace the deck again, and to cast
his eyes about him, in order to watch the fruits of his new experiment.
The change in the course of the Bristol trader had made a corresponding
change in the apparent direction of the stranger who yet floated in the
horizon like a diminutive and misty shadow. Still the unerring compass
told the watchful mariner, that she continued to maintain the same
relative position as when first seen. No effort, on the part of Wilder,
could apparently alter her bearing an inch. Another hour soon passed
away, during which, as the log told him, the “Caroline” had rolled
through more than three leagues of water, and still there lay the
stranger in the west, as though it were merely a lessened shadow of
herself, cast by the “Caroline” upon the distant and dusky clouds. An
alteration in his course exposed a broader surface of his canvas to the
eyes of the spectators, but in nothing else was there any visible
change. If his sails had been materially increased, the distance and
the obscurity prevented even the understanding Earing from detecting
it. Perhaps the excited mind of the worthy mate was too much disposed
to believe in the miraculous powers possessed by his unaccountable
neighbour, to admit of the full exercise of his experienced faculties
on the occasion; but even Wilder, who vexed his sight, in
often-repeated examinations, was obliged to confess to himself, that
the stranger seemed to glide, across the waste of waters, more like a
body floating in the air, than a ship resorting to the ordinary
expedients of mariners.

Mrs Wyllys and her charge had, by this time, retired to their cabin;
the former secretly felicitating herself on the prospect of soon
quitting a vessel that had commenced its voyage under such sinister
circumstances as to have deranged the equilibrium of even her
well-governed and highly-disciplined mind. Gertrude was left in
ignorance of the change. To her uninstructed eye, all appeared the same
on the wilderness of the ocean; Wilder having it in his power to alter
the direction of his vessel as often as he pleased, without his fairer
and more youthful passenger being any the wiser for the same.

Not so, however, with the intelligent Commander of the “Caroline”
himself. To him there was neither obscurity nor doubt, in the midst of
his midnight path. His eye had long been familiar with every star that
rose from out the waving bed of the sea, to set in another dark and
ragged outline of the element; nor was there a blast, that swept across
the ocean, that his burning cheek could not tell from what quarter of
the heavens it poured out its power. He knew, and understood, each
inclination made by the bows of his ship; his mind kept even pace with
her windings and turnings, in all her trackless wanderings; and he had
little need to consult any of the accessories of his art, to tell him
what course to steer, or in what manner to guide the movements of the
nice machine he governed. Still was he unable to explain the
extraordinary evolutions of the stranger. His smallest change seemed
rather anticipated than followed; and his hopes of eluding a vigilance,
that proved so watchful, was baffled by a facility of manoeuvring, and
a superiority of sailing, that really began to assume, even to his
intelligent eyes, the appearance of some unaccountable agency.

While our adventurer was engaged in the gloomy musings that such
impressions were not ill adapted to excite, the heavens and the sea
began to exhibit another aspect. The bright streak which had so long
hung along the eastern horizon, as though the curtain of the firmament
had been slightly opened to admit a passage for the winds, was now
suddenly closed; and heavy masses of black clouds began to gather in
that quarter, until vast volumes of the vapour were piled upon the
water, blending the two elements in one. On the other hand, the dark
canopy lifted in the west, and a long belt of lurid light was shed over
the view. In this flood of bright and portentous mist the stranger
still floated, though there were moments when his faint and fanciful
outlines seemed to be melting into thin air.




Chapter XVI.

“Yet again? What do you here? Shal we give o’er, an drown? Have you a
mind to sink?”

_Tempest._


Our watchful adventurer was not blind to these well-known and sinister
omens. No sooner did the peculiar atmosphere, by which the mysterious
image that he so often examined was suddenly surrounded, catch his eye,
than his voice was heard in the clear, powerful, and exciting notes of
warning.

“Stand by,” he called aloud, “to in all studding sails! Down with
them!” he added, scarcely giving his former words time to reach the
ears of his subordinates. “Down with every rag of them, fore and aft
the ship! Man the top-gallant clew-lines, Mr Earing. Clew up, and clew
down! In with every thing, cheerily, men! In!”

This was a language to which the crew of the “Caroline” were no
strangers, and one which was doubly welcome; since the meanest seaman
of them all had long thought that his unknown Commander had been
heedlessly trifling with the safety of the vessel, by the hardy manner
in which he disregarded the wild symptoms of the weather. But they
undervalued the keen-eyed vigilance of Wilder. He had certainly driven
the Bristol trader through the water at a rate she had never been known
to have gone before; but, thus far, the facts themselves attested in
his favour, since no injury was the consequence of what they deemed his
temerity. At the quick, sudden order just given, however, the whole
ship was instantly in an uproar. A dozen seamen called to each other,
from different parts of the vessel each striving to lift his voice
above the roaring ocean; and there was every appearance of a general
and inextricable confusion; but the same authority which had aroused
them, thus unexpectedly, into activity, produced order, from their
ill-directed though vigorous efforts.

Wilder had spoken, to awaken the drowsy, and to excite the torpid. The
instant he found each man on the alert, he resumed his orders, with a
calmness that gave a direction to the powers of all, but still with an
energy that he well knew was called for by the occasion. The enormous
sheets of duck, which had looked like so many light clouds in the murky
and threatening heavens, were soon seen fluttering wildly, as they
descended from their high places; and, in a few minutes, the ship was
reduced to the action of her more secure and heavier canvas. To effect
this object, every man in the ship had exerted his powers to the
utmost, under the guidance of the steady but rapid mandates of their
Commander. Then followed a short and apprehensive breathing pause.
Every eye was turned towards the quarter where the ominous signs had
been discovered; and each individual endeavoured to read their import,
with an intelligence correspondent to the degree of skill he might have
acquired, during his particular period of service, on that treacherous
element which was now his home.

The dim tracery of the stranger’s form had been swallowed by the flood
of misty light, which, by this time, rolled along the sea like drifting
vapour, semi-pellucid, preternatural, and seemingly tangible. The ocean
itself appeared admonished that a quick and violent change was nigh.
The waves had ceased to break in their former foaming and brilliant
crests, but black masses of the water were seen lifting their surly
summits against the eastern horizon, no longer relieved by their
scintillating brightness, or shedding their own peculiar and lucid
atmosphere around them. The breeze which had been so fresh, and which
had even blown, at times, with a force that nearly amounted to a little
gale, was lulling and becoming uncertain, as though awed by the more
violent power that was gathering along the borders of the sea, in the
direction of the neighbouring continent. Each moment, the eastern puffs
of air lost their strength, and became more and more feeble, until, in
an incredibly short period, the heavy sails were heard flapping against
the masts—a frightful and ominous calm succeeding. At this instant, a
glancing, flashing gleam lighted the fearful obscurity of the ocean;
and a roar, like that of a sudden burst of thunder, bellowed along the
waters. The seamen turned their startled looks on each other, and stood
stupid, as though a warning had been given, from the heavens
themselves, of what was to follow. But their calm and more sagacious
Commander put a different construction on the signal. His lip curled,
in high professional pride, and his mouth moved rapidly while he
muttered to himself, with a species of scorn,—

“Does he think we sleep? Ay, he has got it himself and would open our
eyes to what is coming! What does he imagine we have been about, since
the middle watch was set?”

Then, Wilder made a swift turn or two on the quarter-deck, never
ceasing to bend his quick glances from one quarter of the heavens to
another; from the black and lulling water on which his vessel was
rolling, to the sails; and from his silent and profoundly expectant
crew, to the dim lines of spars that were waving above his head, like
so many pencils tracing their curvilinear and wanton images over the
murky volumes of the superincumbent clouds.

“Lay the after-yards square!” he said, in a voice which was heard by
every man on deck, though his words were apparently spoken but little
above his breath. Even the creaking of the blocks, as the spars came
slowly and heavily round to the indicated position, contributed to the
imposing character of the moment, and sounded, in the ears of all the
instructed listeners, like notes of fearful preparation.

“Haul up the courses!” resumed Wilder, after a thoughtful, brief
interval, with the same eloquent calmness of manner. Then, taking
another glance at the threatening horizon, he added, with emphasis,
“Furl them—furl them both: Away aloft, and hand your courses,” he
continued, in a shout; “roll them up, cheerily; in with them, boys,
cheerily; in!”

The conscious seamen took their impulses from the tones of their
Commander. In a moment, twenty dark forms were seen leaping up the
rigging, with the alacrity of so many quadrupeds; and, in another
minute, the vast and powerful sheets of canvas were effectually
rendered harmless, by securing them in tight rolls to their respective
spars. The men descended as swiftly as they had mounted to the yards;
and then succeeded another short and breathing pause. At this moment, a
candle would have sent its flame perpendicularly towards the heavens.
The ship, missing the steadying power of the wind, rolled heavily in
the troughs of the seas, which, however began to be more diminutive, at
each instant, as though the startled element was recalling, into the
security of its own vast bosom, that portion of its particles which
had, just before, been permitted to gambol so madly over its surface.
The water washed sullenly along the side of the ship, or, as she
labouring rose from one of her frequent falls into the hollows of the
waves, it shot back into the ocean from her decks, in numberless little
glittering cascades. Every hue of the heavens, every sound of the
element, and each dusky and anxious countenance that was visible,
helped to proclaim the intense interest of the moment. It was in this
brief interval of expectation, and inactivity, that the mates again
approached their Commander.

“It is an awful night, Captain Wilder!” said Earing presuming on his
rank to be the first of the two to speak.

“I have known far less notice given of a shift of wind,” was the steady
answer.

“We have had time to gather in our kites, ’tis true, sir; but there are
signs and warnings, that come with this change, at which the oldest
seaman has reason to take heed!”

“Yes,” continued Nighthead, in a voice that sounded hoarse and
powerful, even amid the fearful accessories of that scene; “yes, it is
no trifling commission that can call people, that I shall not name, out
upon the water in such a night as this. It was in just such weather
that I saw the ‘Vesuvius’ ketch go to a place so deep, that her own
mortar would not have been able to have sent a bomb into the open air,
had hands and fire been there fit to let it off!”

“Ay; and it was in such a time that the Greenlandman was cast upon the
Orkneys, in as flat a calm as ever lay on the sea.”

“Gentlemen,” said Wilder, with a peculiar and perhaps an ironical
emphasis on the word, “what is it you would have? There is not a breath
of air stirring, and the ship is naked to her topsails!”

It would have been difficult for either of the two malcontents to have
given a very satisfactory answer to this question. Both were secretly
goaded by mysterious and superstitious apprehensions, that were
powerfully aided by the more real and intelligible aspect of the night;
but neither had so far for gotten his manhood, and his professional
pride, as to lay bare the full extent of his own weakness, at a moment
when he was liable to be called upon for the exhibition of qualities of
a far more positive and determined character. Still, the feeling that
was uppermost betrayed itself in the reply of Earing, though in an
indirect and covert manner.

“Yes, the vessel is snug enough now,” he said, “though eye-sight has
shown us all it is no easy matter to drive a freighted ship though the
water as fast as one of your flying craft can go, aboard of which no
man can say, who stands at the helm, by what compass she steers, or
what is her draught!”

“Ay,” resumed Nighthead, “I call the ‘Caroline’ fast for an honest
trader, and few square-rigged boats are there, who do not wear the
pennants of the King, that can eat her out of the wind, or bring her
into their wake, with studding-sails abroad. But this is a time, and an
hour, to make a seaman think. Look at yon hazy light, here, in with the
land, that is coming so fast down upon us, and then tell me whether it
comes from the coast of America, or whether it comes from out of the
stranger who has been so long running under our lee, but who has got,
or is fast getting, the wind of us at last, and yet none here can say
how, or why. I have just this much, and no more, to say: Give me for
consort a craft whose Captain I know, or give me none!”

“Such is your taste, Mr Nighthead,” said Wilder, coldly; “mine may, by
some accident, be very different.”

“Yes, yes,” observed the more cautious and prudent Earing, “in time of
war, and with letters of marque aboard, a man may honestly hope the
sail he sees should have a stranger for her master; or otherwise he
would never fall in with an enemy. But though an Englishman born
myself, I should rather give the ship in that mist a clear sea, seeing
that I neither know her nation nor her cruise. Ah, Captain Wilder,
yonder is an awful sight for the morning watch! Often, and often, have
I seen the sun rise ill the east, and no harm done; but little good can
come of a day when the light first breaks in the west. Cheerfully would
I give the owners the last month’s pay, hard as I have earned it with
my toil, did I but know under what flag yonder stranger sails.”

“Frenchman, Don, or Devil, yonder he comes!” cried Wilder. Then,
turning towards the silent an attentive crew, he shouted, in a voice
that was appalling by its vehemence and warning, “Let run the after
halyards! round with the fore-yard! round with it, men, with a will!”

These were cries that the startled crew perfectly understood. Every
nerve and muscle were exerted to execute the orders, in time to be in
readiness for the approaching tempest. No man spoke; but each expended
the utmost of his power and skill in direct and manly efforts. Nor was
there, in verity, a moment to lose, or a particle of human strength
expended here, without a sufficient object.

The lucid and fearful-looking mist, which, for the last quarter of an
hour, had been gathering in the north-west, was now driving down upon
them with the speed of a race-horse. The air had already lost the damp
and peculiar feeling of an easterly breeze; and little eddies were
beginning to flutter among the masts—precursors of the coming squall.
Then, a rushing, roaring sound was heard moaning along the ocean, whose
surface was first dimpled, next ruffled, and finally covered, with one
sheet of clear, white, and spotless foam. At the next moment the power
of the wind fell full upon the inert and labouring Bristol trader.

As the gust approached, Wilder had seized the slight opportunity,
afforded by the changeful puffs of air, to get the ship as much as
possible before the wind; but the sluggish movement of the vessel met
neither the wishes of his own impatience nor the exigencies of the
moment. Her bows had slowly and heavily fallen off from the north,
leaving her precisely in a situation to receive the first shock on her
broadside. Happy it was, for all who had life at risk in that
defenceless vessel, that she was not fated to receive the whole weight
of the tempest at a blow. The sails fluttered and trembled on their
massive yards, bellying and collapsing alternately for a minute, and
then the rushing wind swept over them in a hurricane.

The “Caroline” received the blast like a stout and buoyant ship,
yielding readily to its impulse, until her side lay nearly incumbent on
the element in which she floated; and then, as if the fearful fabric
were conscious of its jeopardy, it seemed to lift its reclining masts
again, struggling to work its way heavily through the water.

“Keep the helm a-weather! Jam it a-weather, for your life!” shouted
Wilder, amid the roar of the gust.

The veteran seaman at the wheel obeyed the order with steadiness, but
in vain he kept his eyes riveted on the margin of his head sail, in
order to watch the manner the ship would obey its power. Twice more, in
as many moments, the tall masts fell towards the horizon, waving as
often gracefully upward and then they yielded to the mighty pressure of
the wind, until the whole machine lay prostrate on the water.

“Reflect!” said Wilder, seizing the bewildered Earing by the arm, as
the latter rushed madly up the steep of the deck; “it is our duty to be
calm: Bring hither an axe.”

Quick as the thought which gave the order, the admonished mate
complied, jumping into the mizzen-channels of the ship, to execute,
with his own hands, the mandate that he well knew must follow.

“Shall I cut?” he demanded, with uplifted arms, and in a voice that
atoned for his momentary confusion, by its steadiness and force.

“Hold! Does the ship mind her helm at all?”

“Not an inch, sir.”

“Then cut,” Wilder clearly and calmly added.

A single blow sufficed for the discharge of the momentary act. Extended
to the utmost powers of endurance, by the vast weight it upheld, the
lanyard struck by Earing no sooner parted, than each of its fellows
snapped in succession, leaving the mast dependant on itself alone for
the support of all its ponderous and complicated hamper. The cracking
of the wood came next; and then the rigging fell, like a tree that had
been sapped at its foundation, the little distance that still existed
between it and the sea.

“Does she fall off?” instantly called Wilder to the observant seaman at
the wheel.

“She yielded a little, sir; but this new squall is bringing her up
again.”

“Shall I cut?” shouted Earing from the main rigging whither he had
leaped, like a tiger who had bounded on his prey.

“Cut!” was the answer.

A loud and imposing crash soon succeeded this order, though not before
several heavy blows had been struck into the massive mast itself. As
before, the seas received the tumbling maze of spars, rigging and
sails; the vessel surging, at the same instant from its recumbent
position, and rolling far and heavily to windward.

“She rights! she rights!” exclaimed twenty voices which had been
hitherto mute, in a suspense that involved life and death.

“Keep her dead away!” added the still calm but deeply authoritative
voice of the young Commander “Stand by to furl the fore-topsail—let it
hang a moment to drag the ship clear of the wreck—cut cut—cheerily,
men—hatchets and knives—cut _with_ all, and cut _off_ all!”

As the men now worked with the freshened vigour of revived hope, the
ropes that still confined the fallen spars to the vessel were quickly
severed; and the “Caroline,” by this time dead before the gale,
appeared barely to touch the foam that covered the sea, like a bird
that was swift upon the wing skimming the waters. The wind came over
the waste in gusts that rumbled like distant thunder, and with a power
that seemed to threaten to lift the ship and its contents from its
proper element, to deliver it to one still more variable and
treacherous. As a prudent and sagacious seaman had let fly the halyards
of the solitary sail that remained, at the moment when the squall
approached, the loosened but lowered topsail was now distended in a
manner that threatened to drag after it the only mast which still
stood. Wilder instantly saw the necessity of getting rid of this sail,
and he also saw the utter impossibility of securing it. Calling Earing
to his side, he pointed out the danger, and gave the necessary order.

“Yon spar cannot stand such shocks much longer,” he concluded; “and,
should it go over the bows, some fatal blow might be given to the ship
at the rate she is moving. A man or two must be sent aloft to cut the
sail from the yards.”

“The stick is bending like a willow whip,” returned the mate, “and the
lower mast itself is sprung. There would be great danger in trusting a
life in that top, while such wild squalls as these are breathing around
us.”

“You may be right,” returned Wilder, with a sudden conviction of the
truth of what the other had said: “Stay you then here; and, if any
thing befal me, try to get the vessel into port as far north as the
Capes of Virginia, at least;—on no account attempt Hatteras, in the
present condition of”——

“What would you do, Captain Wilder?” interrupted the mate laying his
hand powerfully on the shoulder of his Commander, who, he observed, had
already thrown his sea-cap on the deck, and was preparing to divest
himself of some of his outer garments.

“I go aloft, to ease the mast of that topsail, without which we lose
the spar, and possibly the ship.”

“Ay, ay, I see that plain enough; but, shall it be said, Another did
the duty of Edward Earing? It is your business to carry the vessel into
the Capes of Virginia, and mine to cut the topsail adrift. If harm
comes to me, why, put it in the log, with a word or two about the
manner in which I played my part: That is always the best and most
proper epitaph for a sailor.”

Wilder made no resistance, but resumed his watchful and reflecting
attitude, with the simplicity of one who had been too long trained to
the discharge of certain obligations himself, to manifest surprise that
another should acknowledge their imperative character. In the mean
time, Earing proceeded steadily to perform what he had just promised.
Passing into the waist of the ship, he provided himself with a suitable
hatchet, and then, without speaking a syllable to any of the mute but
attentive seamen, he sprang into the fore-rigging, every strand and
rope-yarn of which was tightened by the strain nearly to snapping. The
understanding eyes of his observers comprehended his intention; and,
with precisely the same pride of station as had urged him to the
dangerous undertaking, four or five of the older mariners jumped upon
the ratlings, to mount with him into an air that apparently teemed with
a hundred hurricanes.

“Lie down out of that fore-rigging,” shouted Wilder, through a
deck-trumpet; “lie down; all, but the mate, lie down!” His words were
borne past the inattentive ears of the excited and mortified followers
of Earing, but they failed of their effect. Each man was too much bent
on his own earnest purpose to listen to the sounds of recall. In less
than a minute, the whole were scattered along the yards, prepared to
obey the signal of their officer. The mate cast a look about him; and,
perceiving that the time was comparatively favourable, he struck a blow
upon the large rope that confined one of the angles of the distended
and bursting sail to the lower yard. The effect was much the same as
would be produced by knocking away the key-stone of an ill-cemented
arch. The canvas broke from all its fastenings with a loud explosion,
and, for an instant, was seen sailing in the air ahead of the ship, as
though sustained on the wings of an eagle. The vessel rose on a
sluggish wave—the lingering remains of the former breeze—and then
settled heavily over the rolling surge, borne down alike by its own
weight and the renewed violence of the gusts. At this critical instant
while the seamen aloft were still gazing in the direction in which the
little cloud of canvas had disappeared, a lanyard of the lower rigging
parted with a crack that even reached the ears of Wilder.

“Lie down!” he shouted fearfully through his trumpet; “down by the
backstays; down for your lives; every man of you, down!”

A solitary individual, of them all, profited by the warning, and was
seen gliding towards the deck with the velocity of the wind. But rope
parted after rope, and the fatal snapping of the wood instantly
followed. For a moment, the towering maze tottered, and seemed to wave
towards every quarter of the heavens; and then, yielding to the
movements of the hull, the whole fell, with a heavy crash, into the
sea. Each cord, lanyard, or stay snapped, when it received the strain
of its new position, as though it had been made of thread, leaving the
naked and despoiled hull of the “Caroline” to drive onward before the
tempest, as if nothing had occurred to impede its progress.

A mute and eloquent pause succeeded this disaster It appeared as if the
elements themselves were appeased by their work, and something like a
momentary lull in the awful rushing of the winds might have been
fancied. Wilder sprang to the side of the vessel, and distinctly beheld
the victims, who still clung to their frail support. He even saw Earing
waving his hand, in adieu, with a seaman’s heart, and like a man who
not only felt how desperate was his situation, but one who knew how to
meet his fate with resignation. Then the wreck of spars, with all who
clung to it, was swallowed up in the body of the frightful,
preternatural-looking mist which extended on every side of them, from
the ocean to the clouds.

“Stand by, to clear away a boat!” shouted Wilder, without pausing to
think of the impossibility of one’s swimming, or of effecting the least
good, in so violent a tornado.

But the amazed and confounded seamen who remained needed not
instruction in this matter. No man moved, nor was the smallest symptom
of obedience given. The mariners looked wildly around them, each
endeavouring to trace, in the dusky countenance of the other, his
opinion of the extent of the evil; but not a mouth was opened among
them all.

“It is too late—it is too late!” murmured Wilder to himself; “human
skill and human efforts could not save them!”

“Sail, ho!” Nighthead muttered at his elbow, in a voice that teemed
with a species of superstitious awe.

“Let him come on,” returned his young Commander bitterly; “the mischief
is ready finished to his hands!”

“Should yon be a mortal ship, it is our duty to the owners and the
passengers to speak her, if a man can make his voice heard in this
tempest,” the second mate continued, pointing, through the haze at the
dim object that was certainly at hand.

“Speak her!—passengers!” muttered Wilder, involuntarily repeating his
words. “No; any thing is better than speaking her. Do you see the
vessel that is driving down upon us so fast?” he sternly demanded of
the watchful seaman who still clung to the wheel of the “Caroline.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” was the brief, professional reply.

“Give her a birth—sheer away hard to port—perhaps he may pass us in the
gloom, now we are no higher than our decks. Give the ship a broad
sheer, I say, sir.”

The same laconic answer as before was given and, for a few moments, the
Bristol trader was seen diverging a little from the line in which the
other approached; but a second glance assured Wilder that the attempt
was useless. The strange ship (and every man on board felt certain it
was the same that had so long been seen hanging in the north-western
horizon) came on, through the mist, with a swiftness that nearly
equalled the velocity of the tempestuous winds themselves. Not a thread
of canvas was seen on board her. Each line of spars, even to the
tapering and delicate top-gallant-masts, was in its place, preserving
the beauty and symmetry of the whole fabric; but nowhere was the
smallest fragment of a sail opened to the gale. Under her bows rolled a
volume of foam, that was even discernible amid the universal agitation
of the ocean; and, as she came within sound, the sullen roar of the
water might have been likened to the noise of a cascade. At first, the
spectators on the decks of the “Caroline” believed they were not seen,
and some of the men called madly for lights, in order that the
disasters of the night might not terminate in the dreaded encounter.

“No!” exclaimed Wilder; “too many see us there already!”

“No, no,” muttered Nighthead; “no fear but we are seen; and by such
eyes, too, as never yet looked out of mortal head!”

The seamen paused. In another instant, the long-seen and mysterious
ship was within a hundred feet of them. The very power of that wind,
which was wont usually to raise the billows, now pressed the element,
with the weight of mountains, into its bed. The sea was every where a
sheet of froth, but no water swelled above the level of the surface.
The instant a wave lifted itself from the security of the vast depths,
the fluid was borne away before the tornado in driving, glittering
spray. Along this frothy but comparatively motionless surface, then,
the stranger came booming, with the steadiness and grandeur with which
a dark cloud is seen to sail before the hurricane. No sign of life was
any where discovered about her. If men looked out, from their secret
places, upon the straitened and discomfited wreck of the Bristol
trader, it was covertly, and as darkly as the tempest before which they
drove. Wilder held his breath, for the moment the stranger drew
nighest, in the very excess of suspense; but, as he saw no signal of
recognition, no human form, nor any intention to arrest, if possible,
the furious career of the other, a smile of exultation gleamed across
his countenance, and his lips moved rapidly, as though he found
pleasure in being abandoned to his distress. The stranger drove by,
like a dark vision and, ere another minute, her form was beginning to
grow less distinct, in a thickening body of the spray to leeward.

“She is going out of sight in the mist!” exclaimed Wilder, when he drew
his breath, after the fearful suspense of the few last moments.

“Ay, in mist, or clouds,” responded Nighthead, who now kept obstinately
at his elbow, watching with the most jealous distrust, the smallest
movement of his unknown Commander.

“In the heavens, or in the sea, I care not, provided she be gone.”
“Most seamen would rejoice to see a strange sail, from the hull of a
vessel shaved to the deck like this.”

“Men often court their destruction, from ignorance of their own
interests. Let him drive on, say I, and pray I! He goes four feet to
our one; and now I ask no better favour than that this hurricane may
blow until the sun shall rise.”

Nighthead started, and cast an oblique glance which resembled
denunciation, at his companion. To his blunted faculties, and
superstitious mind, there was profanity in thus invoking the tempest,
at a moment when the winds seemed already to be pouring out their
utmost wrath.

“This is a heavy squall, I will allow,” he said, “and such an one as
many mariners pass whole lives without seeing; but he knows little of
the sea who thinks there is not more wind where this comes from.”

“Let it blow!” cried the other, striking his hands together a little
wildly; “I pray only for wind!”

All the doubts of Nighthead, as to the character of the young stranger
who had so unaccountably got possession of the office of Nicholas
Nichols, if, indeed, any remained, were now removed. He walked forward
among the silent and thoughtful crew with the air of a man whose
opinion was settled. Wilder, however, paid no attention to the
movements of his subordinate, but continued pacing the deck for hours;
now casting his eyes at the heavens or now sending frequent and anxious
glances around the limited horizon, while the “Royal Caroline” still
continued drifting before the wind, a shorn and naked wreck.




Chapter XVII.

“Sit still, and hear the last of our sea sorrow.”

_Shakespeare_


The weight of the tempest had been felt at that hapless moment when
Earing and his unfortunate companions were precipitated from their
giddy elevation into the sea. Though the wind continued to blow long
after this fatal event, it was with a constantly diminishing power. As
the gale decreased the sea began to rise, and the vessel to labour in
proportion. Then followed two hours of anxious watchfulness on the part
of Wilder, during which the whole of his professional knowledge was
needed in order to keep the despoiled hull of the Bristol trader from
becoming a prey to the greedy waters. His consummate skill, however,
proved equal to the task that was required at his hands; and, just as
the symptoms of day were becoming visible along the east, both wind and
waves were rapidly subsiding together. During the whole of this
doubtful period our adventurer did not receive the smallest assistance
from any of the crew, with the exception of two experienced seamen whom
he had previously stationed at the wheel. But to this neglect he was
indifferent; since little more was required than his own judgment,
seconded, as it faithfully was, by the exertions of the manners more
immediately under his eye.

The day dawned on a scene entirely different from that which had marked
the tempestuous deformity of the night. The whole fury of the winds
appeared to have been expended in their precocious effort. From the
moderate gale, to which they had fallen by the end of the middle watch,
they further altered to a vacillating breeze; and, ere the sun had
risen, the changeful air had subsided into a flat calm. The sea went
down as suddenly as the power which had raised, it vanished; and, by
the time the broad golden light of the sun was shed fairly and fully
upon the unstable element, it lay unruffled and polished, though still
gently heaving in swells so long and heavy as to resemble the placid
respiration of a sleeping infant.

The hour was still early, and the serene appearance of the sky and the
ocean gave every promise of a day which might be passed in devising the
expedients necessary to bring the ship again, in some measure, under
the command of her people.

“Sound the pumps,” said Wilder, observing that the crew were appearing
from the different places in which they had bestowed their cares and
their persons together, during the later hours of the night.

“Do you hear me, sir?” he added sternly, observing that no one moved to
obey his order. “Let the pumps be sounded, and the ship cleared of
every inch of water.”

Nighthead, to whom Wilder had now addressed himself, regarded his
Commander with an oblique ind sullen eye, and then exchanged singularly
intelligent glances with his comrades, before he saw fit to make the
smallest motion towards compliance. But there was that, in the
authoritative mien of his superior, which finally induced him to
comply. The dilatory manner in which the seamen performed the duty was
quickened, however, as the rod ascended, and the well-known signs of a
formidable leak met their eyes. The experiment was repeated with
greater activity, and with far more precision.

“If witchcraft can clear the hold of a ship that is already half full
of water,” said Nighthead, casting another sullen glance towards the
attentive Wilder “the sooner it is done the better; for the whole
cunning of something more than a bungler in the same will be needed, in
order to make the pumps of the ‘Royal Caroline’ suck!”

“Does the ship leak?” demanded his superior with a quickness of
utterance which sufficiently proclaimed how important he deemed the
intelligence.

“Yesterday, I would have boldly put my name to the articles of any
craft that floats the ocean; and had the Captain asked me if I
understood her nature and character, as certain as that my name is
Francis Nighthead, I should have told him, yes. But I find that the
oldest seaman may still learn something of the water; though it should
be got in crossing a ferry in a flat.”

“What mean you, sir?” demanded Wilder, who, for the first time, began
to note the mutinous looks assumed by his mate, no less than the
threatening manner in which he was seconded by the crew. “Have the
pumps rigged without delay, and clear the ship of the water.”

Nighthead slowly complied with the former part of this order; and, in a
few moments, every thing was arranged to commence the necessary, and,
as it would seem, urgent duty of pumping. But no man lifted his hand to
the laborious employment. The quick eye of Wilder, who had now taken
the alarm, was not slow in detecting this reluctance; and he repeated
the order more sternly, calling to two of the seamen, by name, to set
the example of obedience. The men hesitated, giving an opportunity to
the mate to confirm them, by his voice, in their mutinous intentions.

“What need of hands to work a pump in a vessel like this?” he said,
with a coarse laugh, but in which secret terror struggled strangely
with open malice. “After what we have all seen this night, none here
will be amazed, should the vessel begin to spout out the brine like a
breathing whale.”

“What am I to understand by this hesitation, and by this language?”
said Wilder, approaching Nighthead with a firm step, and an eye too
proud to quail before the plainest symptoms of insubordination. “Is it
you, sir, who should be foremost in exertion at a moment like this, who
dare to set an example of disobedience?”

The mate recoiled a pace, and his lips moved, still he uttered no
audible reply. Wilder once more bade him, in a calm and authoritative
tone, lay his own hands to the brake. Nighthead then found his voice,
in time to make a flat refusal; and, at the next moment, he was felled
to the feet of his indignant Commander, by a blow he had neither the
address nor the power to resist. This act of decision was succeeded by
one single moment of breathless, wavering silence among the crew; and
then the common cry, and the general rush of every man upon our
defenceless and solitary adventurer, were the signals that open
hostility had commenced. A shriek from the quarter-deck arrested their
efforts; just as a dozen hands were laid violently upon the person of
Wilder, and, for the moment, occasioned a truce. It was the fearful cry
of Gertrude, which possessed even the influence to still the savage
intentions of a set of beings so rude and so unnurtured as those whose
passions had just been awakened into fierce activity. Wilder was
released; and all eyes turned, by a common impulse, in the direction of
the sound.

During the more momentous hours of the past night, the very existence
of the passengers below had been forgotten by most of those whose duty
kept them to the deck. If they had been recalled at all to the
recollection of any, it was at those fleeting moments when the mind of
the young mariner, who directed the movements of the ship, found
leisure to catch stolen glimpses of softer scenes than the wild warring
of the elements that was so actively raging before his eyes. Nighthead
had named them, as he would have made allusion to a part of the cargo,
but their fate had little influence on his hardened nature. Mrs Wyllys
and her charge had therefore remained below during the whole period,
perfectly unapprised of the disasters of the intervening time. Buried
in the recesses of their births, they had heard the roaring of the
winds, and the incessant washing of the waters; but these usual
accompaniments of a storm had served to conceal the crashing of masts,
and the hoarse cries of the mariners. For the moments of terrible
suspense while the Bristol trader lay on her side, the better informed
governess had, indeed, some fearful glimmerings of the truth; but,
conscious of her uselessness and unwilling to alarm her less instructed
companion she had sufficient self-command to be mute. The subsequent
silence, and comparative calm, induced her to believe that she had been
mistaken in her apprehensions; and, long ere morning dawned, both she
and Gertrude had sunk into sweet and refreshing slumbers. They had
risen and mounted to the deck together, and were still in the first
burst of their wonder at the desolation which met their gaze, when the
long-meditated attack on Wilder was made.

“What means this awful change?” demanded Mrs Wyllys, with a lip that
quivered, and a cheek which, notwithstanding the extraordinary power
she possessed over her feelings, was blanched to the colour of death.

The eye of Wilder was glowing, and his brow dark as those heavens from
which they had just so happily escaped, as he answered, menacing his
assailants with an arm,—

“It means mutiny, Madam; rascally, cowardly mutiny!”

“Could mutiny strip a vessel of her masts, and leave her a helpless log
upon the sea?”

“Hark ye, Madam!” roughly interrupted the mate ‘to you I will speak
freely; for it is well known who you are, and that you came on board
the ‘Caroline’ a paying passenger. This night have I seen the heavens
and the ocean behave as I have never seen them behave before. Ships
have been running afore the wind, light and buoyant as corks, with all
their spars stepped and steady, when other ships have been shaved of
every mast as close as the razor sweeps the chin. Cruisers have been
fallen in with, sailing without living hands to work them; and, all
together, no man here has ever before passed a middle watch like the
one gone by.”

“And what has this to do with the violence I have just witnessed? Is
the vessel fated to endure every evil!—Can _you_ explain this, Mr
Wilder?”

“You cannot say, at least, you had no warning of danger,” returned
Wilder, smiling bitterly.

“Ay, the devil is obliged to be honest on compulsion,” resumed the
mate. “Each of his imps sails with his orders; and, thank Heaven!
however he may be minded to overlook the same, he has neither courage
nor power to do it. Otherwise, a peaceful voyage would be such a
rarity, in these unsettled times, that few men would be found hardy
enough to venture on the water for a livelihood.—A warning! Ay, we will
own you gave us open and frequent warning. It was a notice, that the
consignee should not have overlooked, when Nicholas Nichols met with
the hurt, as the anchor was leaving the bottom I never knew an accident
happen at such a time and no evil come of it. Then, had we a warning
with the old man in the boat; besides the never-failing ill luck of
sending the pilot violently out of the ship. As if all this wasn’t
enough, instead of taking a hint, and lying peaceably at our anchors,
we got the ship under way, and left a safe and friendly harbour of a
Friday, of all the days in a week![2] So far from being surprised at
what has happened, I only wonder at finding myself still a living man;
the reason of which is simply this, that I have given my faith where
faith only is due, and not to unknown mariners and strange Commanders.
Had Edward Earing done the same, he might still have had a plank
between him and the bottom; but, though half inclined to believe in the
truth, he had, after all, too much leaning to superstition and
credulity.”

 [2] The superstition, that Friday is an evil day, was not peculiar to
 Nighthead; it prevails, more or less, among seamen to this hour. An
 intelligent merchant of Connecticut had a desire to do his part in
 eradicating an impression that is sometimes inconvenient. He caused
 the keel of a vessel to be laid on a Friday; she was launched on a
 Friday; named the “Friday;” and sailed on her first voyage on a
 Friday. Unfortunately for the success of this well-intentioned
 experiment, neither vessel nor crew were ever again heard of!


This laboured and characteristic profession of faith in the mate,
though sufficiently intelligible to Wilder, was still a perfect enigma
to his female listeners. But Nighthead had not formed his resolution by
halves, neither had he gone thus far, with any intention to stop short
of the completion of his whole design. In a very few summary words, he
explained to Mrs Wyllys the desolate condition of the ship, and the
utter improbability that she could continue to float many hours; since
actual observation had told him that her lower hold was already half
full of water.

“And what is then to be done?” demanded the governess, casting a glance
of bitter distress towards the pallid and attentive Gertrude. “Is there
no sail in sight, to take us from the wreck? or must we perish in our
helplessness!”

“God-protect us from anymore strange sails!” exclaimed the surly
Nighthead. “There we have the pinnace hanging at the stern, and here
must be land at some forty leagues to the north-west. Water and food
are plenty, and twelve, stout hands can soon pull a boat to the
continent of America; that is, always provided, America is left where
it was seen no later than at the sun-set of yesterday.”

“You then propose to abandon the vessel?”

“I do. The interest of the owners is dear to all good seamen, but life
is sweeter than gold.”

“The will of heaven be done! But surely you meditate no violence
against this gentleman, who, I am quite certain, has governed the
vessel, in very critical circumstances, with a discretion far beyond
his years!”

Nighthead muttered his intentions, whatever they might be, to himself;
and then he walked apart, apparently to confer with the men, who
already seemed but too well disposed to second any of his views,
however mistaken or lawless. During the few moments of suspense that
succeeded, Wilder stood silent and composed, a smile of something like
scorn struggling about his lip, and maintaining the air rather of one
who had power to decide on the fortunes of others, than of a man whose
own fate was most probably at that very moment in discussion. When the
dull minds of the seamen had arrived at their conclusion, the mate
advanced to proclaim the result. Indeed, words were unnecessary, in
order to make known a very material part of their decision; for a party
of the men proceeded instantly to lower the stern-boat into the water,
while others set about supplying it with the necessary means of
subsistence.

“There is room for all the Christians in the ship to stow themselves in
this pinnace,” resumed Nighthead; “and as for those that place their
dependance on any particular persons, why, let them call for aid where
they have been used to receive it.”

“From all which I am to infer that it is your intention,” said Wilder,
calmly, “to abandon the wreck and your duty?”

The half-awed but still resentful mate returned a look in which fear
and triumph struggled for the mastery, as he answered,—

“You, who know how to sail a ship without a crew, can never want a
boat! Besides, you shall never say to your friends, whoever they may
be, that we leave you without the means of reaching the land, if you
are indeed a land-bird at all. There is the launch.”

“There is the launch! but well do you know, that, without masts, all
your united strengths could not lift it from the deck; else would it
not be left.”

“They that took the masts out of the ‘Caroline’ can put them in again,”
rejoined a grinning seaman; “it will not be an hour after we leave you,
before a sheer-hulk will come alongside, to step the spars again, and
then you may go cruise in company.”

Wilder appeared to be superior to any reply. He began to pace the deck,
thoughtful, it is true, but still composed, and entirely
self-possessed. In the mean time, as a common desire to quit the wreck
as soon as possible actuated all the men, their preparations advanced
with incredible activity. The wondering and alarmed females had hardly
time to think clearly on the extraordinary situation in which they
found themselves, before they saw the form of the helpless Master borne
past them to the boat; and, in another minute, they were summoned to
take their places at his side.

Thus imperiously called upon to act, they began to feel the necessity
of decision. Remonstrances, they feared, would be useless; for the
fierce and malignant looks which were cast, from time to time, at
Wilder, as the labour proceeded, proclaimed the danger of awakening
such obstinate and ignorant minds into renewed acts of violence. The
governess bethought her of an appeal to the wounded man, but the look
of wild care which he had cast about him, on being lifted to the deck,
and the expression of bodily and mental pain that gleamed across his
rugged features, as he buried them in the blankets by which he was
enveloped, but too plainly announced that little assistance was, in his
present condition, to be expected from him.

“What remains for us to do?” she at length demanded of the seemingly
insensible object of her concern.

“I would I knew!” he answered quickly, casting a keen but hurried
glance around the whole horizon. “It is not improbable that they should
reach the shore. Four-and-twenty hours of calm will assure it.”

“And if otherwise?”

“A blow at north-west, or from any quarter off the land, will prove
their ruin.”

“But the ship?”

“If deserted, she must sink.”

“Then will I speak in your favour to these hearts of flint! I know not
why I feel such interest in your welfare, inexplicable young man, but
much would I suffer rather than believe that you incurred this peril.”

“Stop, dearest Madam,” said Wilder, respectfully arresting her movement
with his hand. “I cannot leave the vessel.”

“We know not yet. The most stubborn natures may be subdued; even
ignorance can be made to open its ears at the voice of entreaty. I may
prevail.”

“There is one temper to be quelled—one reason to convince—one prejudice
to conquer, over which you have no power.”

“Whose is that?”

“My own.”

“What mean you, sir? Surely you are not weak enough to suffer
resentment against such beings to goad you to an act of madness?”

“Do I seem mad?” demanded Wilder. “The feeling by which I am governed
may be false, but, such as it is, it is grafted on my habits, my
opinions; I will say, my principles. Honour forbids me to quit a ship
that I command, while a plank of her is afloat.”

“Of what use can a single arm prove at such a crisis?”.

“None,” he answered, with a melancholy smile. “I must die, in order
that others, who may be serviceable hereafter, should do their duty.”

Both Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude stood regarding his kindling eye, but
otherwise placid countenance, with looks whose concern amounted to
horror. The former read, in the very composure of his mien, the
unalterable character of his resolution; and the latter shuddering as
the prospect of the cruel fate which awaited him crowded on her mind,
felt a glow about her own youthful heart that almost tempted her to
believe his self-devotion commendable. But the governess saw new
reasons for apprehension in the determination of Wilder. If she had
hitherto felt reluctance to trust herself and her ward with a band such
as that which now possessed the sole authority, it was more than doubly
increased by the rude and noisy summons she received to hasten and take
her place among them.

“Would to Heaven I knew in what manner to choose!” she exclaimed.
“Speak to us, young man, as you would counsel mother and sister.”

“Were I so fortunate as to possess relatives so near and dear,”
returned the other, with emphasis “nothing should separate us at a time
like this.”

“Is there hope for those who remain on the wreck?”

“But little.”

“And in the boat?”

It was near a minute before Wilder made any answer. He again turned his
look around the bright and broad horizon, and he appeared to study the
heavens, in the direction of the distant Continent, with infinite care.
No omen that could indicate the probable character of the weather
escaped his vigilance while his countenance reflected all the various
emotions by which he was governed, as he gazed.

“As I am a man, Madam,” he answered with fervour “and one who is bound
not only to counsel but to protect your sex, I distrust the time. I
think the chance of being seen by some passing sail equal to the
probability that those who adventure in the pinnace will ever reach the
land.”

“Then let us remain,” said Gertrude, the blood, for the first time
since her re-appearance on deck, rushing into her colourless cheeks,
until they appeared charged to fulness. “I like not the wretches who
would be our companions in that boat.”

“Away, away!” impatiently shouted Nighthead “Each minute of light is a
week of life to us all, and every moment of calm, a year. Away, away,
or we leave you!”

Mrs Wyllys answered not, but she stood the image of doubt and painful
indecision. Then the plash of oars was heard in the water, and at the
next moment the pinnace was seen gliding over the element, impelled by
the strong arms of six powerful rowers.

“Stay!” shrieked the governess, no longer undetermined; “receive my
child, though you abandon me!”

A wave of the hand, and an indistinct rumbling in the coarse tones of
the mate, were the only answers given to her appeal. A long, deep, and
breathing silence followed among the deserted. The grim countenances of
the seamen in the pinnace soon became confused and indistinct; and then
the boat itself began to lessen on the eye, until it seemed no more
than a dark and distant speck, rising and falling with the flow and
reflux of the blue waters. During all this time, not even a whispered
word was spoken. Each of the party gazed, until sight grew dim, at the
receding object; and it was only when his organs refused to convey the
tiny image to his brain, that Wilder himself shook off the impression
of the sort of trance into which he had fallen. His look became bent on
his companions, and he pressed his hand upon his forehead, as though
his brain were bewildered by the deep responsibility he had assumed in
advising them to remain. But the sickening apprehension quickly passed
away, leaving in its place a firmer mind, and a resolution too often
tried in scenes of doubtful issue, to be long or easily shaken from its
calmness and self-possession.

“They are gone!” he exclaimed, breathing long and heavily, like one
whose respiration had been unnaturally suspended.

“They are gone!” echoed the governess, turning an eye, that was
contracting with the intensity or her care, on the marble-like and
motionless form of her pupil “There is no longer any hope.”

The look that Wilder bestowed, on the same silent out lovely statue,
was scarcely less expressive than “he gaze of her who had nurtured the
infancy of the Southern Heiress, in innocence and love. His brow grew
thoughtful, and his lips became compressed, while all the resources of
his fertile imagination and long experience gathered in his mind, in
engrossing intense reflection.

“Is there hope?” demanded the governess, who was watching the change of
his working countenance, with an attention that never swerved.

The gloom passed away from his swarthy features, and the smile that
lighted them was like the radiance of the sun, as it breaks through the
blackest vapours of the drifting gust.

“There is!” he said with firmness; “our case is far from desperate.”

“Then, may He who rules the ocean and the land receive the praise!”
cried the grateful governess giving vent to her long-suppressed agony
in a flood of tears.

Gertrude cast herself upon the neck of Mrs Wyllys, and for a minute
their unrestrained emotions were mingled.

“And now, my dearest Madam,” said Gertrude, leaving the arms of her
governess, “let us trust to the skill of Mr Wilder; he has foreseen and
foretold this danger; equally well may he predict our safety.”

“Foreseen and foretold!” returned the other, in a manner to show that
her faith in the professional prescience of the stranger was not
altogether so unbounded as that of her more youthful and ardent
companion. “No mortal could have foreseen this awful calamity; and
least of all, foreseeing it, would he have sought to incur its danger!
Mr Wilder, I will not annoy you with requests for explanations that
might now be useless, but you will not refuse to communicate your
grounds of hope.”

Wilder hastened to relieve a curiosity that he well knew must be as
painful as it was natural. The mutineers had left the largest, and much
the safest, of the two boats belonging to the wreck, from a desire to
improve the calm, well knowing that hours of severe labour would be
necessary to launch it, from the place it occupied between the stumps
of the two principal masts, into the ocean. This operation, which might
have been executed in a few minutes with the ordinary purchases of the
ship, would have required all their strength united, and that, too, to
be exercised with a discretion and care that would have consumed too
many of those moments which they rightly deemed to be so precious at
that wild and unstable season of the year. Into this little ark Wilder
proposed to convey such articles of comfort and necessity as he might
hastily collect from the abandoned vessel; and then, entering it with
his companions, to await the critical instant when the wreck should
sink from beneath them.

“Call you this hope?” exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, when his short explanation
was ended, her cheek again blanching with disappointment. “I have heard
that the gulf, which foundering vessels leave, swallows all lesser
objects that are floating nigh!”

“It sometimes happens. For worlds I would not deceive you; and I now
say that I think our chance for escape equal to that of being ingulfed
with the vessel.”

“This is terrible!” murmured the governess, “but the will of Heaven be
done! Cannot ingenuity supply the place of strength, and the boat be
cast from the decks before the fatal moment arrives?”

Wilder shook his head in an unequivocal negative.

“We are not so weak as you may think us,” said Gertrude. “Give a
direction to our efforts, and let us see what may yet be done. Here is
Cassandra,” she added—turning to the black girl already introduced to
the reader, who stood behind her young and ardent mistress, with the
mantle and shawls of the latter thrown over her arm, as if about to
attend her on an excursion for the morning—“here is Cassandra who alone
has nearly the strength of a man.”

“Had she the strength of twenty, I should despair of launching the boat
without the aid of machinery But we lose time in words; I will go
below, in order to judge of the probable duration of our doubt and then
to our preparations. Even you, fair and fragile as you seem, lovely
being, may aid in the latter.”

He then pointed out such lighter objects as would be necessary to their
comfort, should they be so fortunate as to get clear of the wreck, and
advised their being put into the boat without delay. While the three
females were thus usefully employed, he descended into the hold of the
ship, in order to note the increase of the water, and make his
calculations on the time that would elapse before the sinking fabric
must entirely disappear. The fact proved their case to be more alarming
than even Wilder had been led to expect. Stripped of her masts, the
vessel had laboured so heavily as to open many of her seams; and, as
the upper works began to settle beneath the level of the ocean, the
influx of the element was increasing with frightful rapidity. As the
young manner gazed about him with an understanding eye, he cursed, in
the bitterness of his heart, the ignorance and superstition that had
caused the desertion of the remainder of the crew. There existed, in
reality, no evil that exertion and skill could not have remedied; but,
deprived of all aid, he at once saw the folly of even attempting to
procrastinate a catastrophe that was now unavoidable. Returning with a
heavy heart to the deck, he immediately set about those dispositions
which were necessary to afford them the smallest chance of escape.

While his companions deadened the sense of apprehension by their light
but equally necessary employment Wilder stepped the two masts of the
boat, and properly disposed of the sails, and those other implements
that might be useful in the event of success Thus occupied, a couple of
hours flew by, as though minutes were compressed into moments. At the
expiration of that period, his labour had ceased. He then cut the
gripes that had kept the launch in its place when the ship was in
motion, leaving it standing upright on its wooden beds, but in no other
manner connected with the hull, which, by this time, had settled so low
as to create the apprehension, that, at any moment, it might sink from
beneath them. After this measure of precaution was taken, the females
were summoned to the boat, lest the crisis might be nearer than he
supposed; for he well knew that a foundering ship was, like a tottering
wall, liable at any moment to yield to the impulse of the downward
pressure. He then commenced the scarcely less necessary operation of
selection among the chaos of articles with which the ill-directed zeal
of his companions had so cumbered the boat, that there was hardly room
left in which they might dispose of their more precious persons.
Notwithstanding the often repeated and vociferous remonstrances of the
negress, boxes, trunks, and packages flew from either side of the
launch, as though Wilder had no consideration for the comfort and care
of that fair being in whose behalf Cassandra, unheeded, like her
ancient namesake of Troy, lifted her voice so often in the tones of
remonstrance. The boat was soon cleared of what, under their
circumstances, was literally lumber; leaving, however, far more than
enough to meet all their wants, and not a few of their comforts, in the
event that the elements should accord the permission to use them.

Then, and not till then, did Wilder relax in his exertions. He had
arranged his sails, ready to be hoisted in an instant; he had carefully
examined that no straggling rope connected the boat to the wreck, to
draw them under with the foundering mass; and he had assured himself
that food, water, compass, and the imperfect instruments that were then
in use to ascertain the position of a ship, were all carefully disposed
of in their several places, and ready to his hand. When all was in this
state of preparation, he disposed of himself in the stern of the boat,
and endeavoured, by the composure of his manner, to inspire his less
resolute companions with a portion of his own firmness.

The bright sun-shine was sleeping in a thousand places on every side of
the silent and deserted wreck. The sea had subsided to such a state of
utter rest, that it was only at long intervals that the huge and
helpless mass on which the ark of the expectants lay was lifted from
its dull quietude, to roll heavily, for a moment, in the washing
waters, and then to settle lower into the greedy and absorbing element.
Still the disappearance of the hull was slow, and even tedious, to
those who looked forward with such impatience to its total immersion,
as to the crisis of their own fortunes.

During these hours of weary and awful suspense, the discourse, between
the watchers, though conducted in tones of confidence, and often of
tenderness, was broken by long intervals of deep and musing silence.
Each forbore to dwell upon the danger of their situation, in
consideration of the feelings of the rest; but neither could conceal
the imminent risk they ran, from that jealous watchfulness of love of
life which was common to them all. In this manner, minutes, hours, and
the day itself, rolled by, and the darkness was seen stealing along the
deep, gradually narrowing the boundary of their view towards the east,
until the whole of the empty scene was limited to a little dusky circle
around the spot on which they lay. To this change succeeded another
fearful hour, during which it appeared that death was about to visit
them, environed by its most revolting horrors. The heavy plunge of the
wallowing whale, as he cast his huge form upon the surface of the sea,
was heard, accompanied by the mimic blowings of a hundred imitators,
that followed in the train of the monarch of the ocean. It appeared to
the alarmed and feverish imagination of Gertrude, that the brine was
giving up all its monsters; and, notwithstanding the calm assurances of
Wilder, that these accustomed sounds were rather the harbingers of
peace than signs of any new danger, they filled her mind with images of
the secret recesses over which they seemed suspended by a thread, and
painted them replete with the disgusting inhabitants of the caverns of
the great deep. The intelligent seaman himself was startled, when he
saw, on the surface of the water, the dark fins of the voracious shark
stealing around the wreck, apprised, by his instinct, that the contents
of the devoted vessel were shortly to become the prey of his tribe.
Then came the moon, with its mild and deceptive light, to throw the
delusion of its glow on the varying but ever frightful scene.

“See,” said Wilder, as the luminary lifted its pale and melancholy orb
out of the bed of the ocean; “we shall have light for our hazardous
launch!”

“Is it at hand?” demanded Mrs Wyllys, with all the resolution of manner
she could assume in so trying a situation.

“It is—the ship has already brought her scuppers to the water.
Sometimes a vessel will float until saturated with the brine. If ours
sink at all, it will be soon.”

“If at all! Is there then hope that she can float?”

“None!” said Wilder, pausing to listen to the hollow and threatening
sounds which issued from the depths of the vessel, as the water broke
through her divisions, in passing from side to side, and which sounded
like the groaning of some heavy monster in the last agony of nature.
“None; she is already losing her level!”

His companions saw the change; but, not for the empire of the world,
could either of them have uttered a syllable. Another low, threatening,
rumbling sound was heard, and then the pent air beneath blew up the
forward part of the deck, with an explosion like that of a gun.

“Now grasp the ropes I have given you!” cried Wilder, breathless with
his eagerness to speak.

His words were smothered by the rushing and gurgling of waters. The
vessel made a plunge like a dying whale; and, raising its stern high
into the air, glided into the depths of the sea, like the leviathan
seeking his secret places. The motionless boat was lifted with the
ship, until it stood in an attitude fearfully approaching to the
perpendicular. As the wreck descended, the bows of the launch met the
element, burying themselves nearly to filling; but, buoyant and light,
it rose again, and, struck powerfully on the stern by the settling
mass, the little ark shot ahead, as though it had been driven by the
hand of man. Still, as the water rushed into the vortex, every thing
within its influence yielded to the suction; and, at the next instant,
the launch was seen darting down the declivity, as if eager to follow
the vast machine, of which it had so long formed a dependant, through
the same gaping whirlpool, to the bottom. Then it rose, rocking, to the
surface; and, for a moment, was tossed and whirled like a bubble
circling in the eddies of a pool. After which, the ocean moaned, and
slept again; the moon-beams playing across its treacherous bosom,
sweetly and calm, as the rays are seen to quiver on a lake that is
embedded in sheltering mountains.




Chapter XVIII.

“Every day, some sailor’s wife,
The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,
Have just our theme of woe.”

_Tempest._


“We are safe!” said Wilder, who had stood, amid the violence of the
struggle, with his person firmly braced against a mast, steadily
watching the manner of their escape. “Thus far, at least, are we safe;
for which may Heaven alone be praised, since no art of mine could avail
us a feather.”

The females had buried their faces in the folds of the vestments and
clothes on which they were sitting; nor did even the governess raise
her countenance until twice assured by her companion that the imminency
of the risk was past. Another minute went by, during which Mrs Wyllys
and Gertrude were rendering their thanksgivings, in a manner and in
words less equivocal than the expression which had just broken from the
lips of the young seaman. When this grateful duty was performed, they
stood erect, as if emboldened, by the offering, to look their situation
more steadily in the face.

On every side lay the seemingly illimitable waste of waters. To them,
their small and frail tenement was the world. So long as the ship,
sinking and dangerous as she was, remained beneath them, there had
appeared to be a barrier between their existence and the ocean. But one
minute had deprived them of even this failing support, and they now
found themselves cast upon the sea in a vessel that might be likened to
one of the bubbles of the element. Gertrude felt, at that instant, as
though she would have given half her hopes in life for the mere sight
of that vast and nearly untenanted Continent which stretched for so
many thousands of miles along the west, and kept the world of waters to
their limits.

But the rush of emotions that so properly belonged to their forlorn
condition soon subsided, and their thoughts returned to the study of
the means necessary to their further safety. Wilder had, however
anticipated these feelings; and, even before Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude
had recovered their recollections, he was occupied, aided by the ready
hands of the terrified but loquacious Cassandra, in arranging the
contents of the boat in such a manner as would enable her to move
through the element with the least possible resistance.

“With a well-trimmed ship, and a fair breeze,” cried our adventurer,
cheerfully, so soon as his little job was ended, “we may yet hope to
reach the land in one day and another night. I have seen the hour when,
in this good launch, I would not have hesitated to run the length of
the American coast, provided”—

“You have forgotten your provided,” said Gertrude observing that he
hesitated, probably from a reluctance to express any exception to the
opinion, which might increase the fears of his companions.

“Provided it were two months earlier in the year,” he added, in a tone
of less confidence.

“The season is, then, against us: It only requires the greater
resolution in ourselves!”

Wilder turned his head to regard the fair speaker, whose pale and
placid countenance, as the moon silvered her fine features, expressed
any thing but the courage to endure the hardships he so well knew she
was liable to encounter, before they might hope to gain the Continent.
After musing a moment, he lifted his open hand towards the south-west,
and held its palm some little time to the air of the night.

“Any thing is better than idleness, for people in our condition,” he
said. “There are some symptoms of the breeze coming in this quarter; I
will be ready to meet it.”

He then spread his two lug-sails; and, trimming aft the sheets, placed
himself at the helm, like one who expected his services there might be
shortly needed. The result did not disappoint his expectations. Ere
Long, the light canvas of the boat began to flutter; and then, as he
brought the bows in the proper direction, the little vessel commenced
moving slowly along its blind and watery path.

The wind soon came fresher upon the sails, heavily charged with the
dampness of the hour. Wilder urged the latter reason as a motive for
the females to seek their rest beneath a little canopy of tarpaulings,
which his foresight had also provided, and on mattresses he had brought
from the ship Perceiving that their protector wished to be alone, Mrs
Wyllys and her pupil did as desired; and, in a few minutes, if not
asleep, no one could have told that any other than our adventurer had
possession of the solitary launch.

The middle hour of the night went by, without any material change in
the prospects of those whose fate so much depended on the precarious
influence of the weather. The wind had freshened to a smart breeze;
and, by the calculations of Wilder, he had already moved across many
leagues of ocean, directly in a line for the eastern end of that long
and narrow isle that separates the waters which wash the shores of
Connecticut from those of the open sea. The minutes flew swiftly by;
for the time was propitious and the thoughts of the young seaman were
busy with the recollections of a short but adventurous life. At moments
he leaned forward, as if he would catch the gentle respiration of one
who slept beneath the dark and rude canopy, and as though he might
distinguish the soft breathings of her slumbers from those of her
companions. Then would his form fall back into its seat, and his lip
curl, or even move, as he gave inward utterance to the wayward fancies
of his imagination. But at no time, not even in the midst of his
greatest abandonment to reverie and thought, did he forget the
constant, and nearly instinctive, duties of his station. A rapid glance
at the heavens, an oblique look at the compass, and an occasional, but
more protracted, examination of the pale face of the melancholy moon,
were the usual directions taken by his practised eyes. The latter was
still in the zenith; and his brow began again to contract, as he saw
that she was shining through an atmosphere without a haze. He would
have liked better to have seen even those portentous and watery circles
by which she is so often environed and which are thought to foretel the
tempest, than the hard and dry medium through which her beams fell so
clear upon the face of the waters. The humidity with which the breeze
had commenced was also gone; and, in its place, the quick, sensitive
organs of the seaman detected the often grateful, though at that moment
unwelcome, taint of the land. All these were signs that the airs from
the Continent were about to prevail, and (as he dreaded, from certain
wild-looking, long, narrow clouds, that were gathering over the western
horizon) to prevail with a power conformable to the turbulent season of
the year.

If any doubt had existed in the mind of Wilder as to the accuracy of
his prognostics, it would have been solved about the commencement of
the morning watch. At that hour the inconstant breeze began again to
die; and, even before its last breathing was felt upon the flapping
canvas, it was met by counter currents from the west. Our adventurer
saw at once that the struggle was now truly to commence, and he made
his dispositions accordingly. The square sheets of duck, which had so
long been exposed to the mild airs of the south, were reduced to one
third their original size, by double reefs; and several of the more
cumbrous of the remaining articles such as were of doubtful use to
persons in their situation, were cast, without pausing to hesitate,
into the sea. Nor was this care without a sufficient object. The air
soon came sighing heavily over the deep from the north-west, bringing
with it the chilling asperity of the inhospitable regions of the
Canadas.

“Ah! well do I know you,” muttered Wilder, as the first puff of this
unwelcome wind struck his sails, and forced the little boat to bend to
its power in passing; “well do I know you, with your fresh-water
flavour and your smell of the land! Would to God you had blown your
fill upon the lakes, without coming down to drive many a weary seaman
back upon his wake, and to eke out a voyage, already too long, by your
bitter colds and steady obstinacy!”

“Do you speak?” said Gertrude, half appearing from beneath her canopy,
and then shrinking back, shivering, into its cover again, as she felt
the influence in the change of air.

“Sleep, Lady, sleep,” he answered, as though he liked not, at such a
moment, to be disturbed by even her soft and silvery voice.

“Is there new danger?” asked the maiden, stepping lightly from the
mattress, as if she would not disturb the repose of her governess. “You
need not fear to tell me the worst: I am a soldier’s child!”

He pointed to the signs so well comprehended by himself, but continued
silent.

“I feel that the wind is colder than it was,” she said, “but I see no
other change.”

“And do you know whither the boat is going?”

“To the land, I think. You assured us of that, and I do not believe you
would willingly deceive.”

“You do me justice; and, as a proof of it, I will now tell you that you
are mistaken. I know that to your eyes all points of the compass, on
this void, must seem the same; but I cannot thus easily deceive
myself.”

“And we are not sailing for our homes?”

“So far from it, that, should this course continue we must cross the
whole Atlantic before your eyes could again see land.”

Gertrude made no reply, but retired, in sorrow, to the side of her
governess. In the mean time, Wilder again left to himself, began to
consult his compass and the direction of the wind. Perceiving that he
might approach nearer to the continent of America by changing the
position of the boat, he wore round, and brought its head as nigh up to
the south-west as the wind would permit.

But there was little hope in this trifling change. At each minute, the
power of the breeze was increasing until it soon freshened to a degree
that compelled him to furl his after-sail. The slumbering ocean was not
long in awakening; and, by the time the launch was snug under a
close-reefed fore-sail, the boat was rising on dark and ever-growing
waves, or sinking into the momentary calm of deep furrows, whence it
rose again, to feel the rapidly increasing power of the blasts. The
dashing of the waters, and the rushing of the wind, which now began to
sweep heavily across the blue waste, quickly drew the females to the
side of our adventurer. To their hurried and anxious questions he made
considerate but brief replies, like a man who felt that the time was
far better suited to action than to words.

In this manner the last lingering minutes of the night went by, loaded
with a care that each moment rendered heavier, and which each
successive freshening of the breeze had a tendency to render doubly
anxious. The day came, only to bestow more distinctness on the
cheerless prospect. The waves were looking green and angrily, while,
here and there, large crests of foam were beginning to break on their
summits—the certain evidence that a conflict betwixt the elements was
at hand. Then came the sun over the ragged margin of the eastern
horizon, climbing slowly into the blue arch above, which lay clear,
chilling, distinct, and entirely without a cloud.

Wilder noted all these changes of the hour with a closeness that proved
how critical he deemed their case. He seemed rather to consult the
signs of the heavens than to regard the tossings and rushings of the
water, which dashed against the side of his little vessel in a mariner
that, to the eyes of his companions, often appeared to threaten their
total destruction. To the latter he was too much accustomed, to
anticipate the true moment of alarm, though to less instructed senses
it might already seem so dangerous. It was to him as is the thunder,
when compared to the lightning, in the mind of the philosopher; or
rather he knew, that, if harm might come from the one on which he
floated, its ability to injure must first be called into action by the
power of the sister element.

“What think you of our case now?” asked Mrs Wyllys, keeping her look
closely fastened on his countenance, as if she would rather trust its
expression than even to his words for the answer.

“So long as the wind continues thus, we may yet hope to keep within the
route of ships to and from the great northern ports; but, if it freshen
to a gale, and the sea begin to break with violence. I doubt the
ability of this boat to lie-to.”

“Then our resource must be in endeavouring to run before the gale.”

“Then must we scud.”

“What would be our direction, in such an event?” demanded Gertrude, to
whose mind, in the agitation of the ocean and the naked view on every
hand, all idea of places and distances was lost, in the most
inextricable confusion.

“In such an event,” returned our adventurer, regarding her with a look
in which commiseration and indefinite concern were so singularly
mingled, that her own mild gaze was changed into a timid and furtive
glance, “in such an event, we should be leaving that land it is so
important to reach.”

“What ’em ’ere?” cried Cassandra, whose large dark eyes were rolling on
every side of her, with a curiosity that no care or sense of danger
could extinguish; “’em berry big fish on a water?”

“It is a boat!” cried Wilder, springing upon a thwart, to catch a
glimpse of a dark object that was driving on the glittering crest of a
wave, within a hundred feet of the spot where the launch itself was
struggling through the brine. “What ho!—boat, ahoy!—holloa there!—boat,
ahoy!”

The deep breathing of the wind swept by them, but no human sound
responded to his shout. They had already fallen, between two seas, into
a deep vale of water, where the narrow view extended no farther than
the dark and rolling barriers on either side.

“Merciful Providence!” exclaimed the governess, “can there be others as
unhappy as ourselves!”

“It was a boat, or my sight is not true as usual,” returned Wilder,
still keeping his stand, to watch the moment when he might catch
another view. His wish was quickly realized. He had trusted the helm,
for the moment, to the hands of Cassandra, who suffered the launch to
vary a little from its course. The words were still on his lips, when
the same black object came sweeping down the wave to windward, and a
pinnace, bottom upwards, washed past them in the trough. Then followed
a shriek from the negress, who abandoned the tiller, and, sinking on
her knees, hid her face in her hands. Wilder instinctively caught the
helm, as he bent his face in the direction whence the revolting eye of
Cassandra had been turned. A grim human form was seen, erect, and half
exposed, advancing in the midst of the broken crest which was still
covering the dark declivity to windward with foam. For a moment, it
stood with the brine dripping from the drenched locks, like some being
that had issued from the deep to turn its frightful features on the
spectators; and then the lifeless body of a drowned man drove past the
launch, which, at the next minute, rose to the summit of the wave, to
sink into another vale where no such terrifying object floated.

Not only Wilder, but Gertrude and Mrs Wyllys. had seen this startling
spectacle so nigh them as to recognize the countenance of Nighthead,
rendered still more stern and forbidding than ever, in the impression
left by death. But neither spoke, nor gave any other evidence of their
intelligence. Wilder hoped that his companions had at least escaped the
shock of recognizing the victim; and the females themselves saw, in the
hapless fortune of the mutineer too much of their own probable though
more protracted fate, to be able to give vent to the horror each felt
so deeply, in words. For some time, the elements alone were heard
sighing a sort of hoarse requiem over the victims of their conflict.

“The pinnace has filled!” Wilder at length observed, when he saw, by
the pallid features and meaning eyes of his companions, it was in vain
to affect reserve on the subject any longer. “Their boat was frail, and
loaded to the water’s edge.”

“Think you all are lost?” observed Mrs Wyllys, in a voice that scarcely
amounted to a whisper.

“There is no hope for any! Gladly would I part with an arm, for the
assistance of the poorest of those misguided seamen, who have hurried
on their evil fortune by their own disobedience and ignorance.”

“And, of all the happy and thoughtless human beings who lately left the
harbour of Newport, in a vessel that has so long been the boast of
mariners, we alone remain!”

“There is not another: This boat, and its contents are the sole
memorials of the ‘Royal Caroline!’”

“It was not within the ken of human Knowledge to foresee this evil,”
continued the governess, fastening her eye on the countenance of
Wilder, as though she would ask a question which conscience told her,
at the same time, betrayed a portion of that very superstition which
had hastened the fate of the rude being they had so lately passed.

“It was not.”

“And the danger, to which you so often and so inexplicably alluded, had
no reference to this we have incurred?”

“It had not.”

“It has gone, with the change in our situation?”

“I hope it has.”

“See!” interrupted Gertrude, laying a hand, in her haste, on the arm of
Wilder. “Heaven be praised! yonder is something at last to relieve the
view.”

“It is a ship!” exclaimed her governess; but, an envious wave lifting
its green side between them and the object, they sunk into a trough, as
though the vision had been placed momentarily before their eyes, merely
to taunt them with its image. The quick glance of Wilder had caught,
however, a glimpse of the tracery against the heavens, as they
descended. When the boat rose again, his look was properly directed,
and he was enabled to be certain of the reality of the vessel. Wave
succeeded wave, and moments followed moments, during which the stranger
was given to their gaze, and as often disappeared, as the launch
unavoidably fell into the troughs of the seas. These short and hasty
glimpses sufficed, however, to convey all that was necessary to the eye
of a man who had been nurtured on that element, where circumstances now
exacted of him such constant and unequivocal evidences of his skill.

At the distance of a mile, there was in fact a ship to be seen, rolling
and pitching gracefully, and without any apparent effort, on those
waves through which the launch was struggling with such difficulty. A
solitary sail was set, to steady the vessel, and that so reduced, by
reefs, as to look like a little snowy cloud amid the dark maze of
rigging and spars. At times, her long and tapering masts appeared
pointing to the zenith, or even rolling as if inclining against the
wind; and then, again, with slow and graceful sweeps, they seemed to
fall towards the ruffled surface of the ocean, as though about to seek
refuge from their endless motion, in the bosom of the agitated element
itself. There were moments when the long, low, and black hull was seen
distinctly resting on the summit of a sea, and glittering in the
sun-beams, as the water washed from her sides; and then, as boat and
vessel sunk together, all was lost to the eye, even to the attenuated
lines of her tallest and most delicate spars.

Both Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude bowed their faces to their knees, when
assured of the truth of their hopes, and poured out their gratitude in
silent and secret thanksgivings. The joy of Cassandra was more
clamorous, and less restrained. The simple negress laughed, shed tears,
and exulted in the most touching manner, on the prospect that was now
offered for the escape of her young mistress and herself from a death
that the recent sight had set before her imagination in the most
frightful form. But no answering look of congratulation was to be
traced in the contracting and anxious eye of their companion.

“Now,” said Mrs Wyllys, seizing his hand in both her own, “may we hope
to be delivered; and then shall we be allowed, brave and excellent
young man, some opportunity of proving to you how highly we esteem your
services.”

Wilder permitted the burst of her feelings with a species of bewildered
care, but he neither spoke, nor in any other manner exhibited the
smallest sympathy in her joy.

“Surely you are not grieved, Mr Wilder,” added the wondering Gertrude,
“that the prospect of escape from these awful waves is at length so
mercifully held forth to us!”

“I would gladly die to shelter you from harm,” returned the young
sailor; “but”—

“This is not a time for any thing but gratitude and rejoicing,”
interrupted the governess; “I cannot hearken to any cold exceptions
now; what mean you with that ‘but?’”

“It may be not so easy as you think to reach yon ship—the gale may
prevent—in short, many is the vessel that is seen at sea which cannot
be spoken.”

“Happily, such is not our cruel fortune. I understand considerate and
generous youth, your wish to dampen hopes that may possibly be yet
thwarted, but I have too long, and too often, trusted this dangerous
element, not to know that he who has the wind can speak, or not, as he
pleases.”

“You are right in saying we are to windward Madam; and, were I in a
ship, nothing would be easier than to run within hail of the
stranger.—That ship is certainly lying-to, and yet the gale is not
fresh enough to bring so stout a vessel to so short canvas.”

“They see us, then, and await our arrival.”

“No, no: Thank God, we are not yet seen! This little rag of ours is
blended with the spray. They take it for a gull, or a comb of the sea,
for the moment it is in view.”

“And do you thank Heaven for this!” exclaimed Gertrude, regarding the
anxious Wilder with a wonder that her more cautious governess had the
power to restrain.

“Did I thank Heaven for not being seen! I may have mistaken the object
of my thanks: It is an armed ship!”

“Perhaps a cruiser of the King’s! We are the more likely to meet with a
welcome reception! Delay not to hoist some signal, lest they increase
their sail, and leave us.”

“You forget that the enemy is often found upon our coast. This might
prove a Frenchman!”

“I have no fears of a generous enemy. Even a pirate would give shelter,
and welcome, to females in such distress.”

A long and profound silence succeeded. Wilder still stood upon the
thwart, straining his eyes to read each sign that a seaman understands;
nor did he appear to find much pleasure in the task.

“We will drift ahead,” he said, “and, as the ship is lying on a
different tack, we may yet gain a position that will leave us masters
of our future movements.”

To this his companions knew not well how to make any objections. Mrs
Wyllys was so much struck with the remarkable air of coldness with
which he met this prospect of refuge against the forlorn condition in
which he had just before confessed they were placed, that she was much
more disposed to ponder on the cause, than to trouble him with
questions which she had the discernment to see would be useless.
Gertrude wondered, while she was disposed to think he might be right,
though she knew not why. Cassandra alone was rebellious. She lifted her
voice in loud objections against a moment’s delay, assuring the
abstracted and perfectly inattentive young seaman, that, should any
evil come to her young mistress by his obstinacy, General Grayson would
be angered; and then she left him to reflect on the results of a
displeasure that to her simple mind teemed with all the danger that
could attend the anger of a monarch. Provoked by his contumacious
disregard of her remonstrances, the negress, forgetting all her
respect, in blindness in behalf of her whom she not only loved, but had
been taught to reverence, seized the boat-hook, and, unperceived by
Wilder, fastened to it, with dexterity, one of the linen cloths that
had been brought from the wreck, and exposed it, far above the
diminished sail, for a couple of minutes, ere her device had caught the
eyes of either of her companions. Then, indeed she lowered the signal,
in haste, before the dark and frowning look of Wilder. But, short as
was the triumph of the negress, it was crowned with complete success.

The restrained silence, which is so apt to succeed a sudden burst of
displeasure, was still reigning in the boat, when a cloud of smoke
broke out of the side of the ship, as she lay on the summit of a wave;
and then came the deadened roar of artillery struggling heavily up
against the wind.

“It is now too late to hesitate,” said Mrs Wyllys; “we are seen, let
the stranger be friend or enemy.”

Wilder did not answer, but continued to profit, by each opportunity, to
watch the movements of the stranger. In another moment, the spars were
seen receding from the breeze, and, in a couple of minutes more, the
head of the ship was changed to the direction in which they lay. Then
appeared four or five broader sheets of canvas in different parts of
the complicated machinery, while the vessel bowed to the gale, as
though she inclined still lower before its power. At moments, as she
mounted on a sea, her bows seemed issuing from the element altogether
and high jets of spray were cast into the air, glittering in the sun,
as the white particles scattered in the breeze, or fell in gems upon
the sails and rigging, “It is now too late, indeed;” murmured our
adventurer bearing up the helm of his own little craft, and letting its
sheet glide through his hands, until the sail was bagging with the
breeze nearly to bursting. The boat, which had so long been labouring
through the water, with a wish to cling as nigh as possible to the
Continent, flew over the seas, leaving a long trail of foam behind it;
and, before either of the females had regained their entire
self-possession, she was floating in the comparative calm that was
created by the hull of a large vessel. A light active form stood in the
rigging of the ship, issuing the necessary orders to a hundred seamen;
and, in the midst of the confusion and alarm that such a scene was
likely to cause in the bosom of woman, Gertrude and Mrs Wyllys, with
their two companions, were transferred in safety to the decks of the
stranger. The moment they and their effects were secured the launch was
cut adrift, like useless lumber. Twenty mariners were then seen
climbing among the ropes; and sail after sail was opened still wider,
until bearing the vast folds of all her canvas spread, the vessel was
urged along the trackless course, like a swift cloud drifting through
the thin medium of the upper air.




Chapter XIX.

“Now let it work: Mischief, thou art afoot,
Take then what course thou wilt!”

_Shakespeare_


When the velocity with which the vessel flew before the wind is
properly considered, the reader will not be surprised to learn, that,
with the change of a week in the time from that with which the
foregoing incidents close, we are enabled to open the scene of the
present chapter in a very different quarter of the same sea. It is
unnecessary to follow the “Rover” in the windings of that devious and
apparently often uncertain course, during which his keel furrowed more
than a thousand miles of ocean, and during which more than one cruiser
of the King was skilfully eluded, and sundry less dangerous encounters
avoided, as much from inclination as any other visible cause. It is
quite sufficient for our purpose to lift the curtain, which must
conceal her movements for a time, to expose the gallant vessel in a
milder climate, and, when the season of the year is considered, in a
more propitious sea.

Exactly seven days after Gertrude and her governess became the inmates
of a ship whose character it is no longer necessary to conceal from the
reader, the sun rose upon her flapping sails, symmetrical spars, and
dark hull, within sight of a few, low, small and rocky islands. The
colour of the element would have told a seaman, had no mound of blue
land been seen issuing out of the world of waters, that the bottom of
the sea was approaching nigher than common to its surface, and that it
was necessary to guard against the well-known and dreaded dangers of
the coast. Wind there was none; for she vacillating and uncertain air
which, from time to time, distended for an instant the lighter canvas
of the vessel, deserved to be merely termed the breathings of a
morning, which was breaking upon the main, soft, mild, and seemingly so
bland as to impart to the ocean the placid character of a sleeping
lake.

Everything having life in the ship was already up and stirring. Fifty
stout and healthy-looking seamen were hanging in different parts of her
rigging, some laughing, and holding low converse with messmates who lay
indolently on the neighbouring spars, and others leisurely performing
the light and trivial duty that was the ostensible employment of the
moment. More than as many others loitered carelessly about the decks
below, somewhat similarly engaged; the whole wearing much the
appearance of men who were set to perform certain immaterial tasks,
more to escape the imputation of idleness than from any actual
necessity that the same should be executed. The quarter-deck, the
hallowed spot of every vessel that may pretend to either discipline or
its semblance, was differently occupied though by a set of beings who
could lay no greater claim to activity or interest. In short, the
vessel partook of the character of the ocean and of the weather, both
of which seemed reserving their powers to some more suitable occasion
for their display.

Three or four young (and, considering the nature of their service, far
from unpleasant-looking) men appeared in a sort of undress nautical
uniform, in which the fashion of no people in particular was very
studiously consulted. Notwithstanding the apparent calm that reigned on
all around them, each of these individuals bore a short straight dirk
at his girdle; and, as one of them bent over the side of the vessel,
the handle of a little pistol was discovered through an opening in the
folds of his professional frock. There were, however, no other
immediate signs of distrust, whence an observer might infer that this
armed precaution was more than the usual custom of the vessel. A couple
of grim and callous looking sentinels, who were attired and accoutred
like soldiers of the land, and who, contrary to marine usage, were
posted on the line which separated the resorting place of the officers
from the forward part of the deck, bespoke additional caution. But,
still, all these arrangements were regarded by the seamen with
incurious eyes—a certain proof that use had long rendered them
familiar.

The individual who has been introduced to the reader under the
high-sounding title of “General,” stood upright and rigid as one of the
masts of the ship, studying, with a critical eye, the equipments of his
two mercenaries, and apparently as regardless of what was passing
around him as though he literally considered himself a fixture in the
vessel. One form, however, was to be distinguished from all around it,
by the dignity of its mien and the air of authority that breathed even
in the repose of its attitude. It was the Rover, who stood alone, none
presuming to approach the spot where he had chosen to plant his light
but graceful and imposing person. There was ever an expression of stern
investigation in his quick wandering eye, as it roved from object to
object in the equipment of the vessel; and at moments, as his look
appeared fastened on some one of the light fleecy clouds that floated
in the blue vacuum above him, there gathered about his brow a gloom
like that which is thought to be the shadowing of intense thought.
Indeed, so dark and threatening did this lowering of the eye become, at
times, that the fair hair which broke out in ringlets from beneath a
black velvet sea-cap, from whose top depended a tassel of gold, could
no longer impart to his countenance the gentleness which it sometimes
was seen to express. As though he disdained concealment, and wished to
announce the nature of the power he wielded, he wore his pistols openly
in a leathern belt, that was made to cross a frock of blue, delicately
edged with gold, and through which he had thrust, with the same
disregard of concealment, a light and curved Turkish yattagan, with a
straight stiletto, which, by the chasings of its handle, had probably
originally come from the manufactory of some Italian artisan.

On the deck of the poop, overlooking the rest and retired from the
crowd beneath them, stood Mrs Wyllys and her charge, neither of whom
announced in the slightest degree, by eye or air, that anxiety which
might readily be supposed natural to females who found themselves in a
condition so critical as in the company of lawless freebooters. On the
contrary, while the former pointed out to the latter the hillock of
pale blue which rose from the water, like a dark and strongly defined
cloud in the distance, hope was strongly blended with the ordinarily
placid expression of her features. She also called to Wilder, in a
cheerful voice; and the youth, who had long been standing, with a sort
of jealous watchfulness, at the foot of the ladder which led from the
quarter-deck, was at her side in an instant.

“I am telling Gertrude,” said the governess, with those tones of
confidence which had been created by the dangers they had incurred
together, “that yonder is her home, and that, when the breeze shall be
felt, we may speedily hope to reach it; but the wilfully timid girl
insists that she cannot believe her senses, after the frightful risks
we have run, until, at least, she shall see the dwelling of her
childhood, and the face of her father. You have often been on this
coast before, Mr Wilder?”

“Often, Madam.”

“Then, you can tell us what is the distant land we see.”

“Land!” repeated our adventurer, affecting a look of surprise; “is
there then land in view?”

“Is there land in view! Have not hours gone by since the same was
proclaimed from the masts?”

“It may be so: We seamen are dull after a night of watching, and often
hear but little of that which passes.”

There was a quick, suspicious glance from the eye of the governess, as
if she apprehended, she knew not what, ere she continued,—

“Has the sight of the cheerful, blessed soil of America so soon lost
its charm in your eye, that you approach it with an air so heedless?
The infatuation of men of your profession, in favour of so dangerous
and so treacherous an element, is an enigma I never could explain.”

“Do seamen, then, love their calling with so devoted an affection?”
demanded Gertrude, in a haste that she might have found embarrassing to
explain.

“It is a folly of which we are often accused,” rejoined Wilder, turning
his eye on the speaker, and smiling in a manner that had lost every
shade of reserve.

“And justly?”

“I fear, justly.”

“Ay!” exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, with an emphasis that was remarkable for
the tone of soft and yet bitter regret with which it was uttered;
“often better than their quiet and peaceful homes!”

Gertrude pursued the idea no further; but her line full eye fell upon
the deck, as though she reflected deeply on a perversity of taste which
could render man so insensible to domestic pleasures, and incline him
to court the wild dangers of the ocean.

“I, at least, am free from the latter charge,” exclaimed Wilder: “To me
a ship has always been a home.”

“And much of my life, too, has been wasted in one,” continued the
governess, who evidently was pursuing, in the recesses of her own mind,
some images of a time long past. “Happy and miserable alike, have been
the hours that I have passed upon the sea! Nor is this the first King’s
ship in which it has been my fortune to be thrown. And yet the customs
seem changed since those days I mention, or else memory is beginning to
lose some of the impressions of an age when memory is apt to be most
tenacious. Is it usual, Mr Wilder, to admit an utter stranger, like
yourself, to exercise authority in a vessel of war?”

“Certainly not.”

“And yet have you been acting, as far as my weak judgment teaches, as
second here, since the moment we entered this vessel, wrecked and
helpless fugitives from the waves.”

Our adventurer again averted his eye, and evidently searched for words,
ere he replied,—

“A commission is always respected: Mine procured for me the
consideration you have witnessed.”

“You are then an officer of the Crown?”

“Would any other authority be respected in a vessel of the Crown? Death
had left a vacancy in the second station of this—cruiser. Fortunately
for the wants of the service, perhaps for myself, I was at hand to fill
it.”

“But, tell me farther,” continued the governess, who appeared disposed
to profit by the occasion to solve more doubts than one, “is it usual
for the officers of a vessel of war to appear armed among their crew,
in the manner I see here?”

“It is the pleasure of our Commander.”

“That Commander is evidently a skilful seaman, but one whose caprices
and tastes are as extraordinary as I find his mien. I have surely seen
him before; and, it would seem, but lately.”

Mrs Wyllys then became silent for several minutes. During the whole
time, her eye never averted its gaze from the form of the calm and
motionless being, who still maintained his attitude of repose, aloof
from all that throng whom he had the address to make so entirely
dependant on his authority. It seemed, for these few minutes, that the
organs of the governess drunk in the smallest peculiarity of his
person, and as if they would never tire of their gaze. Then, drawing a
heavy and relieving breath, she once more remembered that she was not
alone, and that others were silently, but observantly, awaiting the
operation of her secret thoughts. Without manifesting any
embarrassment, however, at an absence of mind that was far too common
to surprise her pupil, the governess resumed the discourse where she
had herself dropped it, bending her look again on Wilder.

“Is Captain Heidegger, then, long of your acquaintance?” she demanded.

“We have met before.”

“It should be a name of German origin, by the sound. Certain I am that
it is new to me. The time has been when few officers, of his rank, in
the service of the King, were unknown to me, at least in name. Is his
family of long standing in England?”

“That is a question he may better answer himself,” said Wilder, glad to
perceive that the subject of their discourse was approaching them, with
the air of one who felt that none in that vessel might presume to
dispute his right to mingle in any discourse that should please his
fancy. “For the moment, Madam, my duty calls me elsewhere.”

Wilder evidently withdrew with reluctance; and, had suspicion been
active in the breasts of either of his companions, they would not have
failed to note the glance of distrust with which he watched the manner
that his Commander assumed in paying the salutations of the morning.
There was nothing, however, in the air of the Rover that should have
given ground to such jealous vigilance. On the contrary his manner, for
the moment, was cold and abstracted he appeared to mingle in their
discourse, much more from a sense of the obligations of hospitality
than from any satisfaction that he might have been thought to derive
from the intercourse. Still, his deportment was kind, and his voice
bland as the airs that were wafted from the healthful islands in view.

“There is a sight”—he said, pointing towards the low blue ridges of the
land—“that forms the lands-man’s delight, and the seaman’s terror.”

“Are, then, seamen thus averse to the view of regions where so many
millions of their fellow creatures find pleasure in dwelling?” demanded
Gertrude, (to whom he more particularly addressed his words), with a
frankness that would, in itself, have sufficiently proved no
glimmerings of his real character had ever dawned on her own spotless
and unsuspicious mind.

“Miss Grayson included,” he returned, with a slight bow, and a smile,
in which, perhaps, irony was concealed by playfulness. “After the risk
you have so lately run, even I, confirmed and obstinate sea-monster as
I am, have no reason to complain of your distaste for our element. And
yet, you see, it is not entirely without its charms. No lake, that lies
within the limits of yon Continent, can be more calm and sweet than is
this bit of ocean. Were we a few degrees more southward, I would show
you landscapes of rock and mountain—of bays, and hillsides sprinkled
with verdure—of tumbling whales, and lazy fishermen, and distant
cottages, and lagging sails—such as would make a figure even in pages
that the bright eye of lady might love to read.”

“And yet for most of this would you be indebted to the land. In return
for your picture, I would take you north, and show you black and
threatening clouds—a green and angry sea—shipwrecks and
shoals—cottages, hillsides, and mountains, in the imagination only of
the drowning man—and sails bleached by waters that contain the
voracious shark, or the disgusting polypus.”

Gertrude had answered in his own vein; but it was too evident, by her
pale cheek, and a slight tremour about her full, rich lip, that memory
was also busy with its frightful images. The quick-searching eye of the
Rover was not slow to detect the change. As though he would banish
every recollection that might give her pain, he artfully, but
delicately, gave a new direction to the discourse.

“There are people who think the sea has no amusements,” he said. “To a
pining, home-sick, sea-sick miserable, this may well be true; but the
man who has spirit enough to keep down the qualms of the animal may
tell a different tale. We have our balls regularly, for instance; and
there are artists on board this ship, who, though they cannot, perhaps,
make as accurate a right angle with their legs as the first dancer of a
leaping ballet, can go through their figures in a gale of wind; which
is more than can be said of the highest jumper of them all on shore.”

“A ball, without females, would, at least, be thought an unsocial
amusement, with us uninstructed people of terra firma.”

“Hum! It might be better for a lady or two Then, have we our theatre:
Farce, comedy, and the buskin, take their turns to help along the time.
You fellow, that you see lying on the fore-topsail-yard like an
indolent serpent basking on the branch of a tree, will ‘roar you as
gently as any sucking dove!’ And here is a votary of Momus, who would
raise a smile on the lips of a sea-sick friar: I believe I can say no
more in his commendation.”

“All this is well in the description,” returned Mrs Wyllys; “but
something is due to the merit of the—poet, or, painter shall I term
you?”

“Neither, but a grave and veritable chronologer. However, since you
doubt, and since you are so new to the ocean”—

“Pardon me!” the lady gravely interrupted, “I am, on the contrary, one
who has seen much of it.”

The Rover, who had rather suffered his unsettled glances to wander over
the youthful countenance of Gertrude than towards her companion, now
bent his eyes on the last speaker, where he kept them fastened so long
as to create some little embarrassment in the subject of his gaze.

“You seem surprised that the time of a female should have been thus
employed,” she observed, with a view to arouse his attention to the
impropriety of his observation.

“We were speaking of the sea, if I remember,” he continued, like a man
that was suddenly awakened from a deep reverie. “Ay, I know it was of
the sea; for I had grown boastful in my panegyrics: I had told you that
this ship was faster than”—

“Nothing!” exclaimed Gertrude, laughing at his blunder. “You were
playing Master of Ceremonies at a nautical ball!”

“Will you figure in a minuet? Shall I honour my boards with the graces
of your person?”

“Me, sir? and with whom? the gentleman who knows so well the manner of
keeping his feet in a gale?”

“You were about to relieve any doubts we might have concerning the
amusements of seamen,” said the governess, reproving the too playful
spirit of her pupil, by a glance of her own grave eye.

“Ay, it was the humour of the moment, nor will I balk it.”

He then turned towards Wilder, who had posted himself within ear-shot
of what was passing, and continued,—

“These ladies doubt our gaiety, Mr Wilder. Let the boatswain give the
magical wind of his call, and pass the word ‘To mischief’ among the
people.”

Our adventurer bowed his acquiescence, and issued the necessary order.
In a few moments, the precise individual who has already made
acquaintance with the reader, in the bar-room of the “Foul Anchor,”
appeared in the centre of the vessel, near the main hatchway,
decorated, as before, with his silver chain and whistle, and
accompanied by two mates who were humbler scholars of the same gruff
school. Then rose a long, shrill whistle from the instrument of
Nightingale, who, when the sound had died away on the ear, uttered, in
his deepest and least sonorous tones,—

“All hands to mischief, ahoy!”

We have before had occasion to liken these sounds to the muttering of a
bull, nor shall we at present see fit to disturb the comparison, since
no other similitude so apt, presents itself. The example of the
boatswain was followed by each of his mates in turn, and then the
summons was deemed sufficient. However unintelligible and grum the call
might sound in the musical ears of Gertrude, they produced no
unpleasant effects on the organs of a majority of those who heard them.
When the first swelling and protracted note of the call mounted on the
still air, each idle and extended young seaman, as he lay stretched
upon a spar, or hung dangling from a ratling lifted his head, to catch
the words that were to follow, as an obedient spaniel pricks his ears
to catch the tones of his master. But no sooner had the emphatic word,
which preceded the long-drawn and customary exclamation with which
Nightingale closed his summons, been pronounced, than the low murmur of
voices, which had so long been maintained among the men, broke out in a
simultaneous and common shout. In an instant, every symptom of lethargy
disappeared in a general and extraordinary activity. The young and
nimble topmen bounded like leaping animals, into the rigging of their
respective masts, and were seen ascending the shaking ladders of ropes
as so many squirrels would hasten to their holes at the signal of
alarm. The graver and heavier seamen of the forecastle, the still more
important quarter-gunners and quarter-masters, the less instructed and
half-startled waisters, and the raw and actually alarmed after-guard,
all hurried, by a sort of instinct, to their several points; the more
practised to plot mischief against their shipmates, and the less
intelligent to concert their means of defence.

In an instant, the tops and yards were ringing with laughter and
loudly-uttered jokes, as each exulting mariner aloft proclaimed his
device to his fellows, or urged his own inventions, at the expense of
some less ingenious mode of annoyance. On the other hand, the
distrustful and often repeated glances that were thrown upward, from
the men who had clustered on the quarter-deck and around the foot of
the mainmast sufficiently proclaimed the diffidence with which the
novices on deck were about to enter into the contest of practical wit
that was about to commence. The steady and more earnest seamen forward,
however, maintained their places, with a species of stern resolution
which manifestly proved the reliance they had on their physical force,
and their long familiarity with all the humours, no less than with the
dangers, of the ocean.

There was another little cluster of men, who assembled, in the midst of
the general clamour and confusion, with a haste and steadiness that
announced, at the same time, both a consciousness of the entire
necessity of unity on the present occasion, and habit of acting in
concert. These were the drilled and military dependants of the General,
between whom, and the less artificial seamen, there existed not only an
antipathy that might almost be called instinctive, but which, for
obvious reasons had been so strongly encouraged in the vessel of which
we write, as often to manifest itself in turbulent and nearly mutinous
broils. About twenty in number, they collected quickly; and, although
obliged to dispense with their fire-arms in such an amusement, there
was a sternness, in the visage of each of the whiskered worthies, that
showed how readily he could appeal to the bayonet that was suspended
from his shoulder, should need demand it. Their Commander himself
withdrew, with the rest of the officers to the poop, in order that no
incumbrance might be given, by their presence, to the freedom of the
sports to which they had resigned the rest of the vessel.

A couple of minutes might have been lost in producing the different
changes we have just related But, so soon as the topmen were sure that
no unfortunate laggard of their party was within reach of the
resentment of the different groupes beneath, they commenced complying
literally with the summons of the boatswain, by plotting mischief.

Sundry buckets, most of which had been provided for the extinction of
fire, were quickly seen pendant from as many whips on the outer
extremity of the different yards descending towards the sea. In spite
of the awkward opposition of the men below, these leathern vessels were
speedily filled, and in the hands of those who had sent them down. Many
was the gaping waister, and rigid marine, who now made a more familiar
acquaintance with the element on which he floated than suited either
his convenience or his humour. So long as the jokes were confined to
these semi-initiated individuals, the top men enjoyed their fun with
impunity; but, the in stant the dignity of a quarter-gunner’s person
was invaded, the whole gang of petty officers and forecastle-men rose
in a body to meet the insult, with a readiness and dexterity that
manifested how much at home the elder mariners were with all that
belonged to their art. A little engine was transferred to the head, and
was then brought to bear on the nearest top, like a well-planted
battery clearing the way for the opening battle. The laughing and
chattering topmen were soon dispersed: some ascending beyond the power
of the engine, and others retreating into the neighbouring top, along
ropes, and across giddy heights, that would have seemed impracticable
to any animal less agile than a squirrel.

The marines were now summoned, by the successful and malicious
mariners, forward, to improve their advantage. Thoroughly drenched
already, and eager to resent their wrongs, a half-dozen of the
soldiers, led on by a corporal, the coating of whose powdered poll had
been converted into a sort of paste by too great an intimacy with a
bucket of water, essayed to mount the rigging; an exploit to them much
more arduous than to enter a breach. The waggish quarter-gunners and
quarter-masters, satisfied with their own success, stimulated them to
the enterprise; and Nightingale and his mates, while they rolled their
tongues into their cheeks, gave forth, with their whistles, the
cheering sound of “heave away!” The sight of these adventurers, slowly
and cautiously mounting the rigging, acted very much, on the scattered
topmen, in the manner that the appearance of so many flies, in the
immediate vicinity of a web, is known to act on their concealed and
rapacious enemies. The sailors aloft saw, by expressive glances from
them below, that a soldier was considered legal game. No sooner,
therefore, had the latter fairly entered into the toils, than twenty
topmen rushed out upon them, in order to make sure of their prizes. In
an incredibly short time, this important result was achieved. Two or
three of the aspiring adventurers were lashed where they had been
found, utterly unable to make any resistance in a spot where instinct
itself seemed to urge them to devote both hands to the necessary duty
of holding fast; while the rest were transferred, by the means of
whips, to different spars, very much as a light sail or a yard would
have been swayed into its place.

In the midst of the clamorous rejoicings that attended this success,
one individual made himself conspicuous for the gravity and
business-like air with which he performed his part of the comedy.
Seated on the outer end of a lower yard, with as much steadiness as
though he had been placed on an ottoman, he was intently occupied in
examining into the condition of a captive, who had been run up at his
feet, with an order from the waggish captain of the top, “to turn him
in for a jewel-block;” a name that appears to have been taken from the
precious stones that are so often seen pendant from the ears of the
other sex.

“Ay, ay,” muttered this deliberate and grave-looking tar, who was no
other than Richard Fid “the stropping you’ve sent with the fellow is
none of the best; and, if he squeaks so now, what will he do when you
come to reeve a rope through him! By the Lord, masters, you should have
furnished the lad a better outfit, if you meant to send him into good
company aloft. Here are more holes in his jacket than there are cabin
windows to a Chinese junk. Hilloa!—on deck there!—you Guinea, pick me
up a tailor, and send him aloft, to keep the wind out of this waister’s
tarpauling.”

The athletic African, who had been posted on the forecastle for his
vast strength, cast an eye upward, and, with both arms thrust into his
bosom, he rolled along the deck, with just as serious a mien as though
he had been sent on a duty of the greatest import. The uproar over his
head had drawn a most helpless-looking mortal from a retired corner of
the birth-deck, to the ladder of the forward hatch, where, with a body
half above the combings, a skein of strong coarse thread around his
neck, a piece of bees-wax in one hand, and a needle in the other, he
stood staring about him, with just that sort of bewildered air that a
Chinese mandarin would manifest, were he to be suddenly initiated in
the mysteries of the ballet. On this object the eye of Scipio fell.
Stretching out an arm, he cast him upon his shoulder; and, before the
startled subject of his attack knew into whose hands he had fallen, a
hook was passed beneath the waistband of his trowsers, and he was half
way between the water and the spar, on his way to join the considerate
Fid.

“Have a care lest you let the man fall into the sea!” cried Wilder
sternly, from his stand on the distant poop.

“He’m tailor, masser Harry,” returned the black, without altering a
muscle; “if a clothes no ’trong, he nobody blame but heself.”

During this brief parlance, the good-man Homespun had safely arrived at
the termination of his lofty flight. Here he was suitably received by
Fid, who raised him to his side; and, having placed him comfortably
between the yard and the boom, he proceeded to secure him by a lashing
that would give the tailor the proper disposition of his hands.

“Bouse a bit on this waister!” called Richard, when he had properly
secured the good-man; “so; belay all that.”

He then put one foot on the neck of his prisoner, and, seizing his
lower member as it swung uppermost, he coolly placed it in the lap of
the awe-struck tailor.

“There, friend,” he said, “handle your needle and palm now, as if you
were at job-work. Your knowing handicraft always begins with the
foundation wherein he makes sure that his upper gear will stand.”

“The Lord protect me, and all other sinful mortals, from an untimely
end!” exclaimed Homespun, gazing at the vacant view from his giddy
elevation, with a sensation a little resembling that with which the
aeronaut, in his first experiment, regards the prospect beneath.

“Settle away this waister,” again called Fid; “he interrupts rational
conversation by his noise; and, as his gear is condemned by this here
tailor, why, you may turn him over to the purser for a new outfit.”

The real motive, however, for getting rid of his pendant companion was
a twinkling of humanity, that still glimmered through the rough humour
of the tar, who well knew that his prisoner must hang where he did, at
some little expense of bodily ease. As soon as his request was complied
with, he turned to the good-man, to renew the discourse, with just as
much composure as though they were both seated on the deck, or as if a
dozen practical jokes, of the same character, were not in the process
of enactment, in as many different parts of the vessel.

“What makes you open your eyes, brother, in this port-hole fashion?”
commenced the topman. “This is all water that you see about you, except
that hommoc of blue in the eastern board, which is a morsel of upland
in the Bahamas, d’ye see.”

“A sinful and presuming world is this we live in!” returned the
good-man; “nor can any one tell at what moment his life is to be taken
from him. Five bloody and cruel wars have I lived to see in safety and
yet am I reserved to meet this disgraceful and profane end at last.”

“Well, since you’ve had your luck in the wars, you’ve the less reason
to grumble at the bit of a surge you may have felt in your garments, as
they run you up to this here yard-arm. I say, brother, I’ve known
stouter fellows take the same ride, who never knew when or how they got
down again.”

Homespun, who did not more than half comprehend the allusion of Fid,
now regarded him in a way that announced some little desire for an
explanation, mingled with great admiration of the unconcern with which
his companion maintained his position, without the smallest aid from
any thing but his self-balancing powers.

“I say, brother,” resumed Fid, “that many a stout seaman has been whipt
up to the end of a yard, who has started by the signal of a gun, and
who has staid there just as long as the president of a court-martial
was pleased to believe might be necessary to improve his honesty!”

“It would be a fearful and frightful trifling with Providence, in the
least offending and conscientious mariner, to take such awful
punishments in vain, by acting them in his sports; but doubly so do I
pronounce it in the crew of a ship on which no man can say at what hour
retribution and compunction are to alight. It seems to me unwise to
tempt Providence by such provocating exhibitions.”

Fid cast a glance of far more than usual significance at the good-man,
and even postponed his reply, until he had freshened his ideas by an
ample addition to the morsel of weed which he had kept all along thrust
into one of his cheeks. Then, casting his eyes about him, in order to
see that none of his noisy and riotous companions, of the top, were
within ear-shot, he fastened a still more meaning look on the
countenance of the tailor, as he responded,—

“Hark ye, brother; whatever may be the other good points of Richard
Fid, his friends cannot say he is much of a scholar. This being the
case, he has not seen fit to ask a look at the sailing orders, on
coming aboard this wholesome vessel. I suppose, howsomever, that they
can be forthcoming at need, and that no honest man need be ashamed to
be found cruising under the same.”

“Ah! Heaven protect such unoffending innocents as serve here against
their will, when the allotted time of the cruiser shall be filled!”
returned Homespun. “I take it, however, that you, as a sea-faring and
understanding man, have not entered into this enterprise without
receiving the bounty, and knowing the whole nature of the service.”

“The devil a bit have I entered at all, either in the ‘Enterprise’ or
in the ‘Dolphin,’ as they call this same craft. There is master Harry,
the lad on the poop there, he who hails a yard as soft as a bull-whale
roars; I follow his signals, d’ye see; and it is seldom that I bother
him with questions as to what tack he means to lay his boat on next.”

“What! would you sell your soul in this manner to Beelzebub; and that,
too, without a price?”

“I say, friend, it may be as well to overhaul your ideas, before you
let them slip, in this no-man’s fashion, from your tongue. I would wish
to treat a gentleman, who has come aloft to pay me a visit, with such
civility as may do credit to my top, though the crew be at mischief,
d’ye see. But an officer like him I follow has a name of his own,
without stopping to borrow one of the person you’ve just seen fit to
name. I scorn such a pitiful thing as a threat, but a man of your years
needn’t be told, that it is just as easy to go down from this here spar
as it was to come up to it.”

The tailor cast a glance beneath him into the brine, and hastened to do
away the unfavourable impression which his last unfortunate
interrogation had so evidently left on the mind of his brawny
associate.

“Heaven forbid that I should call any one but by their given and family
names, as the law commands,” he said; “I meant merely to inquire, if
you would follow the gentleman you serve to so unseemly and pernicious
a place as a gibbet?”

Fid ruminated some little time, before he saw fit to reply to so
sweeping a query. During this unusual process, he agitated the weed,
with which his mouth was nearly gorged, with great industry; and then,
terminating both processes, by casting a jet of the juice nearly to the
sprit-sail-yard, he said, in a very decided tone,—

“If I wouldn’t, may I be d—d! After sailing in company for
four-and-twenty years, I should be no better than a sneak, to part
company, because such a trifle as a gallows hove in sight.”

“The pay of such a service should be both generous and punctual, and
the cheer of the most encouraging character,” the good-man observed, in
a way that manifested he should not be displeased were he to receive a
reply. Fid was in no disposition to balk his curiosity, but rather
deemed himself bound, since he had once entered on the subject, to
leave no part of it in obscurity.

“As for the pay, d’ye see,” he said, “it is seaman’s wages. I should
despise myself to take less than falls to the share of the best
foremast-hand in a ship, since it would be all the same as owning that
I got my deserts. But master Harry has a way of his own in rating men’s
services; and if his ideas get jamm’d in an affair of this sort, it is
no marling-spike that I handle which can loosen them. I once just named
the propriety of getting me a quarter-master’s birth; but devil the bit
would he be doing the thing, seeing, as he says himself, that I have a
fashion of getting a little hazy at times, which would only be putting
me in danger of disgrace; since every body knows that the higher a
monkey climbs in the rigging of a ship, the easier every body on deck
can see that he has a tail. Then, as to cheer, it is seaman’s fare;
sometimes a cut to spare for a friend and sometimes a hungry stomach.”

“But then there are often divisions of the—a—a—the-prize-money, in this
successful cruiser?” demanded the good-man, averting his face as he
spoke, perhaps from a consciousness that it might betray an unseemly
interest in the answer. “I dare say, you receive amends for all your
sufferings, when the purser gives forth the spoils.”

“Hark ye, brother,” said Fid, again assuming a look of significance,
“can you tell me where the Admiralty Court sits which condemns her
prizes?”

The good-man returned the glance, with interest; but an extraordinary
uproar, in another part of the vessel, cut short the dialogue, just as
there was a rational probability it might lead to some consolatory
explanations between the parties.

As the action of the tale is shortly to be set in motion again, we
shall refer the cause of the commotion to the opening of the succeeding
chapter.




Chapter XX.

“Come, and get thee a sword, though made of a lath:
They have been up these two days.”

_King Henry VI._


While the little by-play that we have just related was enacting on the
fore-yard-arm of the Rover scenes, that partook equally of the nature
of tragedy and farce, were in the process of exhibition elsewhere. The
contest between the possessors of the deck and those active tenants of
the top, so often named, was far from having reached its termination.
Blows had, in more than one instance, succeeded to angry words; and, as
the former was a part of the sports in which the marines and waisters
were on an equality with their more ingenious tormentors, the war was
beginning to be waged with some appearances of a very doubtful success.
Nightingale, however, was always ready to recall the combatants to
their sense of propriety, with his well-known wind of the call, and his
murmuring voice. A long, shrill whistle, with the words, “Good humour,
ahoy!” had hitherto served to keep down the rising tempers of the
different parties, when the joke bore too hard on the high-spirited
soldier, or the revengeful, though perhaps less mettlesome, member of
the after-guard. But an oversight on the part of him who in common kept
so vigilant an eye on the movements of all beneath his orders, had
nearly led to results of a far more serious nature.

No sooner had the crew commenced the different rough sports we have
just related, than the vein which had induced the Rover to loosen the
reins of discipline, for the moment, seemed suddenly to subside. The
gay and cheerful air that he had maintained in his dialogue with his
female guests (or prisoners, whichever he might be disposed to consider
them) had disappeared, in a thoughtful and clouded brow. His eye no
longer lighted with those glimmerings of wayward and sarcastic humour
in which he much loved to indulge, but its expression became painfully
settled and austere. It was evident that his mind had relapsed into one
of those brooding reveries that so often obscured his playful and
vivacious mien, as a shadow darkens the golden tints of the field of
ripe and waving corn.

While most of those who were not actors in the noisy and humorous
achievements of the crew steadily regarded the same, some with wonder,
others with distrust, and all with more or less of the humour of the
hour, the Rover, to all appearance, was quite unconscious of all that
was going on before his face. It is true, that at times he raised his
eyes to the active beings who clung like squirrels to the ropes, or
suffered them to fall on the duller movements of the men below; but it
was always with a vacancy which proved that the image they carried to
the brain was dim and illusory. The looks he cast, from time to time,
on Mrs Wyllys and her fail and deeply interested pupil, betrayed the
workings of the temper of the inward man. It was only in these brief
but comprehensive glances that the feelings by which he was governed
might have been, in any manner, traced to their origin. Still would the
nicest observer have been puzzled, if not baffled, in endeavouring to
pronounce on the entire character of the emotions uppermost in his
mind. At instants, it might have been fancied that some unholy and
licentious passion was getting the ascendancy; and then, as his eye ran
rapidly over the chaste and matronly, though still attractive,
countenance of the governess, no imagination was necessary to read the
look of doubt, as well as respect, with which he gazed.

It was while thus occupied that the sports proceeded sometimes
humorous, and forcing smiles even from the lips of the half-terrified
Gertrude, but always tending to that violence, and outbreaking of
anger, which might, at any moment, set at naught the discipline of a
vessel in which no other means to enforce authority existed, than such
as its officers could, on the instant, command. Water had been so
lavishly expended, that the decks were running with the fluid, even
more than one flight of spray having invaded the privileged precincts
of the poop. Every ordinary device of similar scenes had been resorted
to, by the men aloft, to annoy their less advantageously posted
shipmates beneath; and such means of retaliation had been adopted as
use or facility rendered obvious. Here, a hog and a waister were seen
swinging against each other, pendant beneath a top; there, a marine,
lashed in the rigging, was obliged to suffer the manipulation of a pet
monkey, which drilled to the duty, and armed with a comb, was posted on
his shoulder, with an air as grave, and an eye as observant, as though
he had been regularly educated in the art of the perruquier; and, every
where, some coarse and practical joke proclaimed the licentious liberty
which had been momentarily accorded to a set of beings who were, in
common, kept in that restraint which comfort, no less than safety,
requires for the well-ordering of an armed ship.

In the midst of the noise and turbulence, a voice was heard, apparently
issuing from the ocean, hailing the vessel by name, with the aid of a
speaking-trumpet that had been applied to the outer circumference of a
hawse hole.

“Who speaks the ‘Dolphin?’” demanded Wilder in reply, when he perceived
that the summons had fallen on the dull ears of his Commander, without
recalling him to the recollection of what was in action.

“Father Neptune is under your fore-foot.”

“What wills’ the God?”

“He has heard that certain strangers have come into his dominions, and
he wishes leave to come aboard the saucy ‘Dolphin,’ to inquire into
their errands, and to overhaul the log-book of their characters.”

“He is welcome. Show the old man aboard through the head; he is too
experienced a sailor to wish to come in by the cabin windows.”

Here the parlance ceased; for Wilder turned upon his heel, as though he
were already disgusted with his part of the mummery.

An athletic seaman soon appeared, seemingly issuing from the element
whose deity he aspired to personate. Mops, dripping with brine,
supplied the place of hoary locks; gulf-weed, of which acres were
floating within a league of the ship, composed a sort of negligent
mantle; and in his hand he bore a trident made of three marling-spikes
properly arranged and borne on the staff of a half-pike. Thus
accoutred, the God of the Ocean, who was no less a personage than the
captain of the forecastle, advanced with a suitable air of dignity,
along the deck attended by a train of bearded water-nymphs and naïades,
in a costume no less grotesque than his own. Arrived on the
quarter-deck, in front of the position occupied by the officers, the
principal personage saluted the groupe with a wave of his sceptre, and
resumed the discourse as follows; Wilder, from the continued
abstraction of his Commander, finding himself under the necessity of
maintaining one portion of the dialogue.

“A wholesome and prettily-rigged boat have you come out in this time,
my son; and one well tilled with a noble set of my children. How long
might it be since you left the land?”

“Some eight days ago.”

“Hardly time enough to give the green ones the use of their sea legs. I
shall be able to find them, by the manner in which they hold on in a
calm.” [Here the General, who was standing with a scornful and averted
eye, let go his hold of a mizzen-shroud, which he had grasped for no
other visible reason than to render his person utterly immoveable;
Neptune smiled, and continued.] “I sha’n’t ask concerning the port you
are last from, seeing that the Newport soundings are still hanging
about the flukes of your anchors. I hope you haven’t brought out many
fresh hands with you, for I smell the stock-fish aboard a Baltic-man,
who is coming down with the trades, and who can’t be more than a
hundred leagues from this; I shall therefore have but little time to
overhaul your people, in order to give them their papers.”

“You see them all before you. So skilful a mariner as Neptune needs no
advice when or how to tell a seaman.”

“I shall then begin with this gentleman,” continued the waggish head of
the forecastle, turning towards the still motionless chief of the
marines. “There is a strong look of the land about him; and I should
like to know how many hours it is since he first floated over blue
water.”

“I believe he has made many voyages; and I dare say has long since paid
the proper tribute to your Majesty.”

“Well, well; the thing is like enough, tho’f I will say I have known
scholars make better use of their time, if he has been so long on the
water as you pretend. How is it with these ladies?”

“Both have been at sea before, and have a right to pass without a
question,” resumed Wilder, a little hastily.

“The youngest is comely enough to have been born in my dominions,” said
the gallant Sovereign of the Sea; “but no one can refuse to answer a
hail that comes straight from the mouth of Old Neptune; so, if it makes
no great difference in your Honour’s reckoning, I will just beg the
young woman to do her own talking.” Then, without paying the least
attention to the angry glance that shot from the eye of Wilder, the
sturdy representative of the God addressed himself directly to
Gertrude. “If, as report goes of you, my pretty damsel, you have seen
blue water before this passage, you may be able to recollect the name
of the vessel, and some other small particulars of the run?”

The face of our heroine changed its colour from red to pale, as
rapidly, and as glowingly, as the evening sky flushes, and returns to
its pearl-like loveliness; but she kept down her feelings sufficiently
to answer, with an air of entire self-possession,—

“Were I to enter into all these little particulars, it would detain you
from more worthy subjects. Perhaps this certificate will convince you
that I am no novice on the sea.” As she spoke, a guinea fell from her
white hand into the broad and extended palm of her interrogator.

“I can only account for my not remembering your Ladyship, by the great
extent and heavy nature of my business,” returned the audacious
freebooter bowing with an air of rude politeness as he pocketed the
offering. “Had I looked into my books before I came aboard this here
ship, I should have seen through the mistake at once; for I now
remember that I ordered one of my limners to take your pretty face, in
order that I might show it to my wife at home. The fellow did it well
enough, in the shell of an East-India oyster; I will have a copy set in
coral, and sent to your husband, whenever you may see fit to choose
one.”

Then, repeating his bow, with a scrape of the foot, he turned to the
governess, in order to continue his examination.

“And you, Madam.” he said, “is this the first rime you have ever come
into my dominions, or not?”

“Neither the first, nor the twentieth; I have often seen your Majesty
before.”

“An old acquaintance! In what latitude might it be that we first fell
in with each other?”

“I believe I first enjoyed that honour, quite thirty years since, under
the Equator.”

“Ay, ay, I’m often there, looking out for India-men and your
homeward-bound Brazil traders. I boarded a particularly great number
that very season but can’t say I remember your countenance.”

“I fear that thirty years have made some changes in it,” returned the
governess, with a smile, which, though mournful, was far too dignified
in its melancholy to induce the suspicion that she regretted a loss so
vain as that of her personal charms. “I was in a vessel of the King,
and one that was a little remarkable by its size, since it was of three
decks.”

The God received the guinea, which was now secretly offered, but it
would seem that success had quickened his covetousness; for, instead of
returning thanks, he rather appeared to manifest a disposition to
increase the amount of the bribe.

“All this may be just as your Ladyship says,” he rejoined; “but the
interest of my kingdom, and a large family at home, make it necessary
that I should look sharp to my rights. Was there a flag in the vessel?”

“There was.”

“Then, it is likely they hoisted it, as usual, at the end of the
jib-boom?”

“It was hoisted, as is usual with a Vice-Admiral, at the fore.”

“Well answered, for petticoats!” muttered the Deity, a little baffled
in his artifice. “It is d——d queer, saving your Ladyship’s presence,
that I should have forgotten such a ship: Was there any thing of the
extraordinary sort, that one would be likely to remember?”

The features of the governess had already lost their forced pleasantry,
in a shade of grave reflection and her eye was evidently fastened on
vacancy us she answered, to all appearance like one who thought aloud.—

“I can, at this moment, see the arch and roguish manner with which that
wayward boy, who then had but eight years, over-reached the cunning of
the mimic Neptune, and retaliated for his devices, by turning the laugh
of all on board on his own head!”

“Was he but eight?” demanded a deep voice at her elbow.

“Eight in years, but maturer in artifice,” returned Mrs Wyllys, seeming
to awake from a trance, as she turned her eyes full upon the face of
the Rover.

“Well, well,” interrupted the captain of the forecastle who cared not
to continue an inquiry in which his dreaded Commander saw fit to take a
part, “I dare say it is all right. I will look into my journal if I
find it so, well—if not, why, it’s only giving the ship a head-wind,
until I’ve overhauled the Dane, and then it will be all in good time to
receive the balance of the fee.”

So saying, the God hurried past the officers, and turned his attention
to the marine guard, who had grouped themselves in a body, secretly
aware of the necessity each man might be under of receiving support
from his fellows, in so searching a scrutiny Perfectly familiar with
the career each individual among them had run, in his present lawless
profession and secretly apprehensive that his authority might be forced
suddenly from him, the chief of the forecastle selected a raw landsman
from among them, bidding his attendants to drag the victim forward,
where he believed they might act the cruel revels he contemplated with
less danger of interruption. Already irritated by the laughs which had
been created at their expense, and resolute to defend their comrade the
marines resisted. A long, clamorous, and angry dispute succeeded,
during which each party maintained its right to pursue the course it
had adopted. From words the disputants were not long in passing to the
signs of hostilities. It was while the peace of the ship hung, as it
were, suspended by a hair, that the General saw fit to express the
disgust of such an outrage upon discipline, which had, throughout the
whole scene, possessed his mind.

“I protest against this riotous and unmilitary procedure,” he said,
addressing himself to his still abstracted and thoughtful superior. “I
have taught my men, I trust, the proper spirit of soldiers, and there
is no greater disgrace can happen to one of them than to lay hands on
him, except it be in the regular and wholesome way of a cat.—I give
open warning to all, that, if a finger is put upon one of my bullies,
unless, as I have said, in the way of discipline, it will be answered
with a blow.”

As the General had not essayed to smother his voice, it was heard by
his followers, and produced the effect which might have been expected.
A vigorous thrust from the fist of the sergeant drew mortal blood from
the visage of the God of the Sea, and at once established his
terrestrial origin. Thus compelled to support his manhood, in more
senses than one, the stout seaman returned the salutation, with such
additional embellishments as the exigencies of the moment seemed to
require. Such an interchange of civilities, between two so prominent
personages, was the signal of general hostilities among their
respective followers. The uproar that attended the onset, had caught
the attention of Fid, who, the instant he saw the nature of the sports
below, abandoned his companion on the yard, and slid downwards to the
deck by the aid of a backstay, with about as much facility as that
caricature of man, the monkey, could have performed the same manoeuvre.
His example was followed by all the topmen; and in less than a minute,
there was every appearance that the audacious marines would be borne
down by the sheer force of numbers. But, stout in their resolution, and
bitter in their hostility, these drilled and resentful warriors,
instead of seeking refuge in flight, fell back upon each other, for
support. Bayonets were seen gleaming in the sun; while some of the
seamen, in the exterior of the crowd, were already laying their hands
on the half-pikes that formed a warlike ornament to the foot of the
mast.

“Hold! stand back, every man of you!” cried Wilder, dashing into the
centre of the throng, and forcing them aside, with a haste that was
possibly quickened by the recollection of the increased danger that
would surround the unprotected females, should the bands of
subordination be once fairly broken among so lawless and desperate a
crew. “On your lives, fall back, and obey. And you, sir, who claim to
be so good a soldier, I call on you to bid your men refrain.”

The General, however disgusted he might have been by the previous
scene, had too many important interests involved in the interior peace
of the vessel not to exert himself at this appeal. He was seconded by
all the inferior officers, who well knew that their lives, as well as
their comfort, depended on staying the torrent that had so unexpectedly
broken loose. But they only proved how hard it is to uphold an
authority that is not established on the foundation of legitimate
power. Neptune had cast aside his masquerade; and, backed by all his
stout forecastle men, was evidently preparing for a conflict that might
speedily give him greater pretensions to immortal nature than those he
had just rejected. Until now, the officers, partly by threats and
partly by remonstrances, had so far controlled the outbreaking, that
the time had been passed rather in preparations than in violence. But
the marines had seized their arms; while two crowded masses of the
mariners were forming on either side of the mainmast, abundantly
provided with spikes, and such other weapons as the bars and handspikes
of the vessel afforded. One or two of the cooler heads among the latter
had even proceeded so far as to clear away a gun, which they were
pointing inboard in a direction that might have swept a moiety of the
quarter-deck. In short, the broil had just reached that pass when
another blow, struck from either side, must have given up the vessel to
plunder and massacre. The danger of such a crisis was heightened by the
bitter taunts that broke forth from fifty profane lips, which were only
opened to lavish the coarsest revilings on the persons and characters
of their respective enemies.

During the five minutes that might have flown by in such sinister and
threatening symptoms of insubordination the individual who was chiefly
interested in the maintenance of discipline had manifested the most
extraordinary indifference, or rather unconsciousness to all that was
passing so near him. With his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes
fastened on the placid sea, he stood motionless as the mast near which
he had placed his person. Long accustomed to the noise of scenes
similar to the one he had himself provoked, he heard, in the confused
sounds which rose unheeded on his ear, no more than the commotion which
ordinarily attended the license of the hour.

His subordinates in command, however, were far more active. Wilder had
already beaten back the boldest of the seamen, and a space was cleared
between the hostile parties, into which his assistants threw
themselves, with the haste of men who knew how much was required at
their hands. This momentary success might have been pushed too far;
for, believing that the spirit of mutiny was subdued, our adventurer
was proceeding to improve his advantage by seizing the most audacious
of the offenders when his prisoner was immediately torn from his grasp
by twenty of his confederates.

“Who’s this, that sets himself up for a Commodore aboard the
‘Dolphin!’” exclaimed a voice in the crowd, at a most unhappy moment
for the authority of the new lieutenant. “In what fashion did he come,
aboard us? or, in what service did he learn his trade?”

“Ay, ay,” continued another sinister voice, “where is the Bristol
trader he was to lead into our net, and for which we lost so many of
the best days in the season, at a lazy anchor?”

Then broke forth a general and simultaneous murmur which, had such
testimony been wanting, would in itself have manifested that the
unknown officer was scarcely more fortunate in his present than in his
recent service. Both parties united in condemning his interference; and
from both sides were heard scornful opinions of his origin, mingled
with certain fierce denunciations against his person. Nothing daunted
by such palpable evidences of the danger of his situation, our
adventurer answered to their taunts with the most scornful smiles,
challenging a single individual of them all to dare to step forth, and
maintain his words by suitable actions.

“Hear him!” exclaimed his auditors.—“He speaks like a King’s officer in
chase of a smuggler!” cried one.—“Ay, he’s a bold’un in a calm,” said a
second.—“He’s a Jonah, that has slipp’d into the cabin windows!” cried
a third; “and, while he stays in the ‘Dolphin,’ luck will keep upon our
weather-beam”—“Into the sea with him! overboard with the upstart! into
the sea with him! where he’ll find that a bolder and a better man has
gone before him!” shouted a dozen at once; some of whom immediately
gave very unequivocal demonstrations of an intention to put their
threat in execution. But two forms instantly sprang from the crowd, and
threw themselves, like angry lions, between Wilder and his foes. The
one, who was foremost in the rescue, faced short upon the advancing
seamen, and with a blow from an arm that was irresistible, level led
the representative of Neptune to his feet, as though he had been a mere
waxen image of a man The other was not slow to imitate his example;
and, as the throng receded before this secession from its own numbers,
the latter, who was Fid, flourished a fist that was as big as the head
of a sizeable infant, while he loudly vociferated,—
“Away with ye, ye lubbers! away with ye! Would you run foul of a single
man, and he an officer and such an officer as ye never set eyes on be
fore, except, mayhap, in the fashion that a cat looks upon a king? I
should like to see the man, among ye all, who can handle a heavy ship,
in a narrow channel, as I have seen master Harry here handle the
saucy”—

“Stand back,” cried Wilder, forcing himself between his defenders and
his foes. “Stand back, I say, and leave me alone to meet the audacious
villains.

“Overboard with him! overboard with them all!” cried the seamen, “he
and his knaves together!”

“Will you remain silent, and see murder done before your eyes?”
exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, rushing from her place of retreat, and laying a
hand eagerly on the arm of the Rover.

He started like one who was awakened suddenly from a light sleep,
looking her full and intently in the eye.

“See!” she added, pointing to the violent throng below, where every
sign of an increased commotion was exhibiting itself. “See, they kill
your officer, and there is none to help him!”

The look of faded marble, which had so long been seated on his
features, vanished, as his eye passed quickly over the scene. The
organs took in the whole nature of the action at the glance; and, with
the intelligence, the blood came rushing into every vein and fibre of
his indignant face. Seizing a rope, which hung from the yard above his
head, he swung his person off the poop, and fell lightly into the very
centre of the crowd. Both parties fell back, while a sudden and
breathing silence succeeded to a clamour that a moment before would
have drowned the roar of a cataract. Making a haughty and repelling
motion with his arm, he spoke, and in a voice that, if any change could
be noted, was even pitched on a key less high and threatening than
common. But the lowest and the deepest of its intonations reached the
most distant ear, and no one who heard was left to doubt its meaning.

“Mutiny!” he said, in a tone that strangely balanced between irony and
scorn; “open, violent, and blood-seeking mutiny! Are ye tired of your
lives, my men? Is there one, among ye all, who is willing to make
himself an example for the good of the rest? If there be, let him lift
a hand, a finger, a hair: Let him speak, look me in the eye, or dare to
show that life is in him, by sign, breath, or motion!”

He paused; and so general and absorbing was the spell produced by his
presence and his mien, that, in all that crowd of fierce and excited
spirits, there was not one so bold as to presume to brave his anger
Sailors and marines stood alike, passive, humbled and obedient, as
faulty children, when arraigned before an authority from which they
feel, in every fibre, that escape is impossible. Perceiving that no
voice answered, no limb moved, nor even an eye among them all was bold
enough to meet his own steady but glowing look, he continued, in the
same deep and commanding tone,—

“It is well: Reason has come of the latest; but, happily for ye all, it
has returned Fall back, fall back, I say; you taint the
quarter-deck.”—The men receded a pace or two on every side of him.—“Let
those arms be stacked; it will be time to use them when I proclaim the
need. And you, fellows, who have been so bold as to lift a pike without
an order have a care they do not burn your hands.”—A dozen staves fell
upon the deck together.—“Is there a drummer in this ship? let him
appear!”

A terrified and cringing-looking being presented himself, having found
his instrument by a sort of desperate instinct.

“Now speak aloud, and let me know at once whether I command a crew of
orderly and obedient men, or a set of miscreants, that require some
purifying before I trust them.”

The first few taps of the drum sufficed to tell the men they heard the
“beat to quarters.” Without hesitating a reluctant moment, the crowd
dissolved, and each of the delinquents stole silently to his station;
the crew of the gun that had been turned inward managing to thrust it
through its port again, with a dexterity that might have availed them
greatly in time of combat. Throughout the whole affair, the Rover had
manifested neither anger nor impatience. Deep and settled scorn, with a
high reliance on himself had, indeed, been exhibited in the proud curl
of his lip, and in the spelling of his form, but not, for an instant,
did it seem that he had suffered his ire to get the mastery of his
reason. And, now that he had recalled his crew to their duty, he
appeared no more elated with his success than he had been daunted by
the storm which, a minute before, had threatened the utter dissolution
of his authority. Instead of pursuing his further purpose in haste, he
awaited the observance of the minutest form which etiquette, as well as
use, had rendered customary on such occasions.

The officers approached, and reported their several divisions in
readiness to engage, with exactly the same regularity as if an enemy
had been in sight. The topmen and sail-trimmers were enumerated, and
found prepared; shot-plugs and stoppers were handled: the magazine was
even opened; the arm chests emptied of their contents; and, in short,
far more than the ordinary preparations of an every day exercise was
observed.

“Let the yards be slung; the sheets and halyards stoppered,” he said to
the first lieutenant, who now displayed as intimate an acquaintance
with the military as he had hitherto discovered with the nautical part
of his profession; “Give the boarders their pikes and boarding-axes,
sir; we will now show these fellows that we dare to trust them with
arms!”

These several orders were obeyed to the letter, and then succeeded that
deep and grave silence which renders a crew, at quarters, a sight so
imposing even to those who have witnessed it from their boyhood. In
this manner, the skilful leader of this band of desperate marauders
knew how to curb their violence with the fetters of discipline. When he
believed their minds brought within the proper limits, by the situation
of restraint in which he had placed them, where they well knew that a
word, or even a look, of offence would be met by an instant as well as
an awful punishment, he walked apart with Wilder, of whom he demanded
an explanation of what had passed.

Whatever might have been the natural tendency of our adventurer to
mercy, he had not been educated on the sea to look with lenity on the
crime of mutiny. Had his recent escape from the wreck of the Bristol
trader been already banished from his mind, the impressions of a whole
life still remained to teach the necessity of keeping tight those cords
which experience has so often proved are absolutely necessary to quell
such turbulent bands, when removed from the pale of society, the
influence of woman, and when excited by the constant collision of
tempers rudely provoked, and equally disposed to violence Though he
“set down naught in malice,” it is certain that he did “nothing;
extenuate,” in the account he rendered. The whole of the facts were
laid before the Rover in the direct, unvarnished language of truth.

“One cannot keep these fellows to their duty by preaching,” returned
the irregular chief, when the other had done. “We have no ‘Execution
Dock for our delinquents, no ‘yellow flag’ for fleets to gaze at, no
grave and wise-looking courts to thumb a book or two, and end by
saying, ‘Hang him.’—The rascals knew my eye was off them. Once before,
they turned my vessel into a living evidence of that passage in the
Testament which teaches humility to all, by telling us, ‘that the last
shall be first, and the first last.’ I found a dozen roundabouts
drinking and making free with the liquors of the cabin, and all the
officers prisoners forward—a state of things, as you will allow, a
little subversive of decency as well as decorum!”

“I am amazed you should have succeeded in restoring discipline!”

“I got among them single-handed, and with no other aid than a boat from
the shore; but I ask no more than a place for my foot, and room for an
arm, to keep a thousand such spirits in order. Now they know me, it is
rare we misunderstand each other.”

“You must have punished severely!”

“There was justice done.—Mr Wilder, I fear you find our service a
little irregular; but a month of experience will put you on a level
with us, and remove all danger of such another scene.” As the Rover
spoke, he faced his recruit, with a countenance that endeavoured to be
cheerful, but whose gaiety could force itself no further than a
frightful smile. “Come,” he quickly added, “this time, I set the
mischief afoot myself; and, as you see we are completely masters, we
may afford to be lenient. Besides,” he continued, glancing his eyes
towards the place where Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude still remained in deep
suspense awaiting his decision, “it may be well to consult the sex of
our guests at such a moment.”

Then, leaving his subordinate, the Rover advanced to the centre of the
quarter-deck, whither he immediately summoned the principal offenders.
The men listened to his rebukes, which were not altogether free from
admonitory warnings of what might be the consequences of a similar
transgression, like creatures who stood in presence of a being of a
nature superior to their own. Though he spoke in his usual quiet tone,
the lowest of his syllables went into the ears of the most distant of
the crew; and, when his brief lesson was ended, the men stood before
him not only like delinquents who had been reproved though pardoned,
but with the air of criminals who were as much condemned by their own
consciousness as by the general voice. Among them all was only one
seaman who, perhaps from past service was emboldened to venture a
syllable in his own justification.

“As for the matter with the marines,” he said “your Honour knows there
is little love between us, though certain it is a quarter-deck is no
place to settle our begrudgings; but, as to the gentleman who has seen
fit to step into the shoes of”——

“It is my pleasure that he should remain there,” hastily interrupted
his Commander. “Of his merit I alone can judge.”

“Well, well, since it is your pleasure, sir, why, no man can dispute
it. But no account has been rendered of the Bristol-man, and great
expectations were had aboard here from that very ship. Your Honour is a
reasonable gentleman, and will not be surprised that people, who are on
the look-out for an outward-bound West-Indiaman, should be unwilling to
take up with a battered and empty launch, in her stead.”

“Ay, sir, if I will it, you shall take an oar, a tiler a thole, for
your portion. No more of this You saw the condition of his ship with
your own eyes; and where is the seaman who has not, on some evil day,
been compelled to admit that his art is nothing, when the elements are
against him? Who saved this ship, in the very gust that has robbed us
of our prize? Was it your skill? or was it that of a man who has often
done it before, and who may one day leave you to your ignorance to
manage your own interests? It is enough that I believe him faithful.
There is no time to convince your dulness of the propriety of all
that’s done. Away, and send me the two men who so nobly stepped between
their officer and mutiny.”

Then came Fid, followed by the negro, rolling along the deck, and
thumbing his hat with one hand, while the other sought an awkward
retreat in a part of his vestments.

“You have done well, my lad; you and your messmate”——

“No messmate, your Honour, seeing that he is a nigger,” interrupted
Fid. “The chap messes with the other blacks, but we take a pull at the
can, now and then, in company.”

“Your friend, then, if you prefer that term.”

“Ay, ay, sir; we are friendly enough at odd times, though a breeze
often springs up between us. Guinea has a d—d awkward fashion of
luffing up in his talk; and your Honour knows it isn’t always
comfortable to a white man to be driven to leeward by a black. I tell
him it is inconvenient. He is a good enough fellow in the main,
howsomever, sir; and, as he is just an African bred and born, I hope
you’ll be good enough to overlook his little failings.”

“Were I otherwise disposed,” returned the Rover, “his steadiness and
activity to-day would plead in his favour.”

“Yes, yes, sir, he is somewhat steady, which is more than I can always
say in my own behalf. Then as for seamanship, there are few men who are
his betters; I wish your Honour would take the trouble to walk forward,
and look at the heart he turned in the mainstay, no later than the last
calm; it takes the strain as easy as a small sin sits upon a rich man’s
conscience.”

“I am satisfied with your description; you call him Guinea?”

“Call him by any thing along that coast; for he is noway particular,
seeing he was never christened, and knows nothing at all of the
bearings and distances of religion. His lawful name is S’ip, or Shipio
Africa, taken, as I suppose, from the circumstance that he was first
shipp’d from that quarter of the world. But, as respects names, the
fellow is as meek as a lamb; you may call him any thing, provided you
don’t call him too late to his grog.”

All this time, the African stood, rolling his large dark eyes in every
direction except towards the speakers, perfectly content that his
long-tried shipmate should serve as his interpreter. The spirit which
had, so recently, been awakened in the Rover seemed already to be
subsiding; for the haughty frown, which had gathered on his brow, was
dissipating in a look which bore rather the character of curiosity than
any fiercer emotion.

“You have sailed long in company, my lads,” he carelessly continued,
addressing his words to neither of them in particular.

“Full and by, in many a gale, and many a calm, your Honour. ’Tis
four-and-twenty years the last equinox, Guinea, since master Harry fell
across our hawse; and, then, we had been together three years in the
‘Thunderer,’ besides the run we made round the Horn, in the ‘Bay’
privateer.”

“Ah! you have been four-and-twenty years with Mr Wilder? It is not so
remarkable that you should set a value on his life.”

“I should as soon think of setting a price on the King’s crown!”
interrupted the straight-going seaman “I overheard the lads, d’ye see,
sir, just plotting to throw the three of us overboard, and so we
thought it time to say something in our own favour and, words not
always being at hand, the black saw fit to fill up the time with
something that might answer the turn quite as well. No, no, he is no
great talker, that Guinea; nor, for that matter, can I say much in my
own favour in this particular; but, seeing that we clapp’d a stopper on
their movements, your Honour will allow that we did as well as if we
had spoken as smartly as a young midshipman fresh from college, who is
always for hailing a top in Latin, you know, sir, for want of
understanding the proper language.”

The Rover smiled, and he glanced his eye aside, apparently in quest of
the form of our adventurer. Not seeing him at hand, he was tempted to
push his covert inquiries a little further, though too much governed,
by self-respect, to let the intense curiosity by which he was
influenced escape him in any direct and manifest interrogation. But an
instant’s recollection recalled him to himself, and he discarded the
idea as unworthy of his character.

“Your services shall not be forgotten. Here is gold,” he said, offering
a handful of the metal to the negro, as the one nearest his own person.
“You will divide it, like honest shipmates; and you may ever rely on my
protection.”

Scipio drew back, and, with a motion of his elbow, replied,—

“His Honour will give ’em masser Harry.”

“Your master Harry has it of his own, lad; he has no need of money.”

“A S’ip no need ’em eider.”

“You will please to overlook the fellow’s manners sir,” said Fid, very
coolly interposing his own hand, and just as deliberately pocketing the
offering “but I needn’t tell as old a seaman as your Honour, that
Guinea is no country to scrape down the seams of a man’s behaviour in.
Howsomever, I can say this much for him, which is, that he thanks your
Honour just as heartily as if you had given him twice the sum. Make a
bow to his Honour, boy, and do some credit to the company you have
kept. And now, since this little difficulty about the money is gotten
over, by my presence of mind, with your Honour’s leave, I’ll just step
aloft, and cast loose the lashings of that bit of a tailor on the
larboard fore-yard-arm. The chap was never made for a topman as you may
see, sir, by the fashion in which he crosses his lower stanchions. That
fellow will make a carrick bend with his legs as easily as I could do
the same with a yarn of white line!”

The Rover signed for him to retire; and, turning where he stood, he
found himself confronted by Wilder. The eyes of the confederates met;
and a slight colour bespoke the consciousness of the former Regaining
his self-possession on the instant, however, he smilingly alluded to
the character of Fid; and then, with an air of authority, he directed
his lieutenant to have the “retreat from quarters” beat.

The guns were secured, the stoppers loosened, the magazine closed, the
ports lashed, and the crew withdrew to their several ordinary duties,
like men whose violence had been completely subdued by the triumphant
influence of a master spirit. The Rover then disappeared from the deck,
which, for a time, was left to the care of an officer of the proper
station.




Chapter XXI.

Thief. “’Tis in the malice of mankind, that he thus advises us not to
have us thrive in our mystery.”

_Timon of Athens._


Throughout the whole of that day, no change occurred in the weather.
The sleeping ocean lay like a waving and glittering mirror, smooth and
polished on its surface, though, as usual, the long rising and falling
of a heavy ground-swell announced the commotion that was in action
within some distant horizon. From the time that he left the deck, until
the sun laved its burnished orb in the sea, the individual, who so well
knew how to keep alive his authority among the untamed tempers that he
governed, was seen no more. Satisfied with his victory, he no longer
seemed to apprehend that it was possible any should be bold enough to
dare to plot the overthrow of his power. This apparent confidence in
himself did not fail to impress his people favourably. As no neglect of
duty was overlooked, nor any offence left to go unpunished, an eye,
that was not seen, was believed by the crew to be ever on them, and an
invisible hand was thought to be at all times uplifted, ready to strike
or to reward. It was by a similar system of energy in moments of need,
and of forbearance when authority was irksome, that this extraordinary
man had so long succeeded, as well in keeping down domestic treason, as
in eluding the utmost address and industry of his open enemies.

When the watch was set for the night, however, and the ship lay in the
customary silence of the hour, the form of the Rover was again seen
walking swiftly to and fro across the poop, of which he was now the
solitary occupant. The vessel had drifted in the stream of the Gulf so
far to the northward, that the little mound of blue had long sunk below
the edge of the ocean; and she was again surrounded, so far as human
eye might see, by an interminable world of water. As not a breath of
air was stirring, the sails had been handed, the tall and naked spars
rearing themselves, in the gloom of the evening, like those of a ship
which rested at her anchors. In short, it was one of those hours of
entire repose that the elements occasionally grant to such adventurers
as trust their fortunes to the capricious government of the treacherous
and unstable winds.

Even the men, whose duty it was to be on the alert, were emboldened, by
the general tranquillity, to become careless on their watch, and to
cast their persons between the guns, or on different portions of the
vessel, seeking that rest which the forms of discipline and good order
prohibited them from enjoying in their hammocks. Here and there,
indeed, the head of a drowsy officer was seen nodding with the lazy
heaving of the ship, as he leaned against the bulwarks, or rested his
person on the carriage of some gun that was placed beyond the sacred
limits of the quarter-deck One form alone stood erect, vigilant, and
evidently maintaining a watchful eye over the whole This was Wilder,
whose turn to keep the deck had again arrived, in the regular division
of the service of the officers.

For two hours, not the slightest communication occurred between the
Rover and his lieutenant. Both rather avoided than sought the
intercourse; for each had his own secret sources of serious meditation
At the end of that period of silence, the former stopped short in his
walk, and looked long and steadily at the still motionless figure on
the deck beneath him.

“Mr Wilder,” he at length said, “the air is fresher on this poop, and
more free from the impurities of the vessel: Will you ascend?”

The other complied; and, for several minutes they walked silently, and
with even steps, together, as seamen are wont to move in the hours of
deep night.

“We had a troublesome morning, Wilder,” the Rover resumed,
unconsciously betraying the subject of his thoughts, and speaking
always in a voice so guarded, that no ears, but his to whom he
addressed himself, might embrace the sound: “Were you ever so near that
pretty precipice, a mutiny, before?”

“The man who is hit is nigher to danger than he who feels the wind of
the ball.”

“Ah! you have then been bearded in your ship! Give yourself no
uneasiness on account of the personal animosity which a few of the
fellows saw fit to manifest against yourself. I am acquainted with
their most secret thoughts, as you shall shortly know.”

“I confess, that, in your place, I should sleep on a thorny pillow,
with such evidences of the temper of my men before my mind. A few hours
of disorder might deliver the vessel, on any day, into the hands of the
Government, and your own life to”——

“The executioner! And why not yours?” demanded the Rover, so quickly,
as to give, in a slight degree, an air of distrust to his manner. “But
the eye that has often seen battles seldom winks. Mine has too often,
and too steadily, looked danger in the face to be alarmed at the sight
of a King’s pennant. Besides it is not usual for us to be much on this
ticklish coast; the islands, and the Spanish Main, are less dangerous
cruising grounds.”

“And yet have yon ventured here at a time when success against the
enemy has given the Admiral leisure to employ a powerful force in your
pursuit.”

“I had a reason for it. It is not always easy to separate the Commander
from the man. If I have temporarily forgotten the obligations of the
former in the wishes of the latter, so far, at least, harm has not come
of it. I may have tired of chasing your indolent Don, and of driving
guarda costas into port. This life of ours is full of excitement which
I love to me, there is interest even in a mutiny!”

“I like not treason. In this particular, I confess myself like the boor
who loses his resolution in the dark. While the enemy is in view, I
hope you will find me true as other men; but sleeping over a mine is
not an amusement to my taste.”

“So much for want of practice! Hazard is hazard come in what shape it
may; and the human mind can as readily be taught to be indifferent to
secret machinations as to open risk. Hush! Struck the bell six, or
seven?”

“Seven. You see the men slumber, as before. Instinct would wake them,
were their hour at hand.”

“’Tis well. I feared the time had passed. Yes, Wilder, I love suspense;
it keeps the faculties from dying, and throws a man upon the better
principles of his nature. Perhaps I owe it to a wayward spirit, but, to
me, there is enjoyment in an adverse wind.’”

“And, in a calm?”

“Calms may have their charms for your quiet spirits; but in them there
is nothing to be overcome. One cannot stir the elements, though one may
counteract their workings.”

“You have not entered on this trade of yours “—

“Yours!”

“I might, now, have said ‘of ours,’ since I too have become a Rover.”

“You are still in your noviciate,” resumed the other, whose quick mind
had already passed the point at which the conversation had arrived;
“and high enjoyment had I in being the one who shrived you in your
wishes. You manifested a skill in playing round your subject, without
touching it, which gives me hopes of an apt scholar.”

“But no penitent, I trust.”

“That as it may be; we are all liable to our moments of weakness, when
we look on life as book men paint it, and think of being probationers
where we are put to enjoy. Yes, I angled for you as the fisherman plays
with the trout. Nor did I overlook the danger of deception. You were
faithful on the whole; though I protest against your ever again acting
so much against my interests as to intrigue to keep the game from
coming to my net.”

“When, and how, have I done this? You have yourself admitted”——

“That the ‘Royal Caroline’ was prettily handled, and wrecked by the
will of Heaven. I speak of nobler quarries, now, than such as any hawk
may fly at. Are you a woman-hater, that you would fain have frightened
the noble-minded woman, and the sweet girl, who are beneath our feet at
this minute, from enjoying the high privilege of your company?”

“Was it treacherous, to wish to save a woman from a fate like that, for
instance, which hung over them both this very day? For, while your
authority exists in this ship, I do not think there can be danger, even
to her who is so lovely.”

“By heavens, Wilder, you do me no more than justice. Before harm should
come to that fair innocent with this hand would I put the match into
the magazine, and send her, all spotless as she is, to the place from
which she seems to have fallen.”

Our adventurer listened greedily to these words, though he little liked
the strong language of admiration with which the Rover was pleased to
clothe his generous sentiment.

“How knew you of my wish to serve them?” he demanded, after a pause,
which neither seemed in any hurry to break.

“Could I mistake your language? I thought it enough when spoken.”

“Spoken!” exclaimed Wilder, in surprise. “Perhaps part of my confession
was then made when I least believed it.”

The Rover did not answer; but his companion saw, by the meaning smile
which played about his lip, that he had been the dupe of an audacious
and completely successful masquerade. Startled, perhaps at discovering
how intricate were the toils into which he had rushed, and possibly
vexed at being so thoroughly over-reached, he made several turns across
the deck before he again spoke.

“I confess myself deceived,” he at length said, “and henceforth I shall
submit to you as a master from whom one may learn, but who can never be
surpassed. The landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor,’ at least, acted in his
proper person, whoever might have been the aged seaman?”

“Honest Joe Joram! An useful man to a distressed mariner, you must
allow. How liked you the Newport pilot?”

“Was he an agent too?”

“For the job merely. I trust such knaves no further than their own eyes
can see. But, hist! Heard you nothing?”

“I thought a rope had fallen in the water.”

“Ay, it is so. Now you shall find how thoroughly I overlook these
turbulent gentlemen.”

The Rover then cut short the dialogue, which was growing deeply
interesting to his companion, and moved, with a light step, to the
stern, over which he hung, for a few moments, by himself, like a man
who found a pleasure in gazing at the dark surface of the sea. But a
slight noise, like that produced by agitated ropes, caught the ear of
his companion, who instantly placed himself at the side of his
Commander, where he did not wait long without gaining another proof of
the manner in which he, as well as all the rest of the crew, were
circumvented by the devices of their leader.

A man was guardedly, and, from his situation, with some difficulty,
moving round the quarter of the ship by the aid of the ropes and
mouldings, which afforded him sufficient means to effect his object.
He, however, soon reached a stern ladder, where he stood suspended, and
evidently endeavouring to discern which of the two forms, that were
overlooking his proceedings, was that of the individual he sought.

“Are you there, Davis?” said the Rover, in a voice but little above a
whisper, first laying his hand lightly on Wilder, as though he would
tell him to attend. “I fear you have been seen or heard.”

“No fear of that, your Honour. I got out at the port by the cabin
bulkhead; and the after-guard are all as sound asleep as if they had
the watch below.”

“It is well. What news bring you from the people?”

“Lord! your Honour may tell them to go to church, and the stoutest
sea-dog of them all wouldn’t dare to say he had forgotten his prayers.”

“You think them in a better temper than they were?”

“I know it, sir: Not but what the will to work mischief is to be found
in two or three of the men, but they dare not trust each other. Your
Honour has such winning ways with you, that one never knows when he is
on safe grounds in setting up to be master.”

“Ay, this is ever the way with your disorganizers,” muttered the Rover,
just loud enough to be heard by Wilder. “A little more honesty, than
they possess, is just wanted, in order that each may enjoy the faith of
his neighbour. And how did the fellows receive the lenity? Did I well?
or must the morning bring its punishment?”

“It is better as it stands, sir. The people know whose memory is good,
and they talk already of the danger of adding another reckoning to this
they feel certain you have not forgotten. There is the captain of the
forecastle, who is a little bitter, as usual, and the more so just now,
on account of the knock-down he got from the list of the black.”

“Ay, he is ever troublesome; a settling day must come at last with the
rogue.”

“It will be a small matter to expend him in boat-service sir; and the
ship’s company will be all the better for his absence.”

“Well, well; no more of him,” interrupted the Rover, a little
impatiently, as if he liked not that his companion should look too
deeply into the policy of his government, so early in his initiation.
“I will see to him. If I mistake not, fellow, you over-acted your own
part to-day, and were a little too forward in leading on the trouble.”

“I hope your Honour will remember that the crew had been piped to
mischief; besides, there could be no great harm in washing the powder
off a few marines.”

“Ay, but you pressed the point after your officer had seen fit to
interfere. Be wary in future, lest you make the acting too true to
nature, and you get applauded in a manner quite as well performed.”

The fellow promised caution and amendment; and then he was dismissed,
with his reward in gold, and with an injunction to be secret in his
return. So soon as the interview was ended, the Rover and Wilder
resumed their walk; the former having made sure that no evesdropper had
been at hand to steal into his mysterious connexion with the spy. The
silence was again long, thoughtful, and deep.

“Good ears” (recommenced the Rover) “are nearly as important, in a ship
like this, as a stout heart. The rogues forward must not be permitted
to eat of the fruit of knowledge, lest we, who are in the cabins, die.”

“This is a perilous service in which we are embarked,” observed his
companion, by a sort of involuntary exposure of his secret thoughts.

The Rover remained silent, making many turns across the deck, before he
again opened his lips. When he spoke, it was in a voice so bland and
gentle, that his words sounded more like the admonitory tones of a
considerate friend, than like the language of a man who had long been
associated with a set of beings so rude and unprincipled as those with
whom he was now seen.

“You are still on the threshold of your life, Mr Wilder,” he said, “and
it is all before you to choose the path on which you will go. As yet,
you have been present at no violation of what the world calls its laws;
nor is it too late to say you never will be. I may have been selfish in
my wish to gain you; but try me; and you will find that self, though
often active, cannot, nor does not, long hold its dominion over my
mind. Say but the word, and you are free; it is easy to destroy the
little evidence which exists of your having made one of my crew. The
land is not far beyond that streak of fading light; before to-morrow’s
sun shall set, your foot may tread it.”

“Then, why not both? If this irregular life be evil for me, it is the
same for you. Could I hope”—

“What would you say?” calmly demanded the Rover, after waiting
sufficiently long to be sure his companion hesitated to continue.
“Speak freely; your words are for the ears of a friend.”

“Then, as a friend will I unbosom myself. You say, the land is here in
the west. It would be easy for you and I, men nurtured on the sea, to
lower this boat into the water; and, profiting by the darkness, long
ere our absence could be known, we should be lost to the eye of any who
might seek us.”

“Whither would you steer?”

“To the shores of America, where shelter and peace might be found in a
thousand secret places.”

“Would you have a man, who has so long lived a prince among his
followers, become a beggar in a land of strangers?”

“But you have gold. Are we not masters here? Who is there that might
dare even to watch our movements, until we were pleased ourselves to
throw off the authority with which we are clothed? Ere the middle watch
was set, all might be done.”

“Alone! Would you go alone?”

“No—not entirely—that is—it would scarcely become us, as men, to desert
the females to the brutal power of those we should leave behind.”

“And would it become us, as men, to desert those who put faith in our
fidelity? Mr Wilder, your proposal would make me a villain! Lawless, in
the opinion of the world, have I long been; but a traitor to my faith
and plighted word, never! The hour may come when the beings whose world
is in this ship shall part; but the separation must be open, voluntary,
and manly. You never knew what drew me into the haunts of man, when we
first met in the town of Boston?”

“Never,” returned Wilder, in a tone of deep disappointment

“Listen, and you shall hear. A sturdy follower had fallen into the
hands of the minions of the law. It was necessary to save him. He was a
man I little loved, but he was one who had ever been honest, after his
opinions. I could not desert the victim; nor could any but I effect his
escape. Gold and artifice succeeded; and the fellow is now here, to
sing the praises of his Commander to the crew. Could I forfeit a good
name, obtained at so much hazard?”

“You would forfeit the good opinions of knaves, to gain a reputation
among those whose commendations are an honour.”

“I know not. You little understand the nature of man, if you are now to
learn that he has pride in maintaining a reputation for even vice, when
he has once purchased notoriety by its exhibition. Besides, I am not
fitted for the world, as it is found among your dependant colonists.”

“You claim your birth, perhaps, in the mother country?”

“I am no better than a poor provincial, sir; an humble satellite of the
mighty sun. You have seen my flags, Mr Wilder:—but there was one
wanting among them all; ay, and one which, had it existed, it would
have been my pride, my glory, to have upheld with my heart’s best
blood!”

“I know not what you mean.”

“I need not tell a seaman, like you, how many noble rivers pour their
waters into the sea along this coast of which we have been speaking—how
many wide and commodious havens abound there—or how many sails whiten
the ocean, that are manned by men who first drew breath on that
spacious and peaceful soil.”

“Surely I know the advantages of the country you mean.”

“I fear not!” quickly returned the Rover. “Were they known, as they
should be, by you and others like you, the flag I mentioned would soon
be found in every sea; nor would the natives of our country have to
succumb to the hirelings of a foreign prince.

“I will not affect to misunderstand your meaning for I have known
others as visionary as yourself in fancying that such an event may
arrive.”

“May!—As certain as that star will settle in the ocean, or that day is
to succeed to night, it _must._ Had that flag been abroad, Mr Wilder,
no man would have ever heard the name of the Red Rover.”

“The King has a service of his own, and it is open to all his subjects
alike.”

“I could be a subject of a King; but to be the subject of a subject,
Wilder, exceeds the bounds of my poor patience. I was educated, I might
almost have said born, in one of his vessels; and how often have I been
made to feel, in bitterness, that an ocean separated my birth-place
from the footstool of his throne! Would you think it, sir? one of his
Commanders dared to couple the name of my country with an epithet I
will not wound your ear by repeating!”

“I hope you taught the scoundrel manners.”

The Rover faced his companion, and there was a ghastly smile on his
speaking features, as he answered—

“He never repeated the offence! ’Twas his blood or mine; and dearly did
he pay the forfeit of his brutality!”

“You fought like men, and fortune favoured the injured party?”

“We fought, sir.—But I had dared to raise my hand against a native of
the holy isle!—It is enough, Mr Wilder; the King rendered a faithful
subject desperate, and he has had reason to repent it. Enough for the
present; another time I may say more.—Good night.”

Wilder saw the figure of his companion descend the ladder to the
quarter-deck; and then was he left to pursue the current of his
thoughts, alone, during the remainder of a watch which to his
impatience seemed without an end.




Chapter XXII.

“She made good view of me; indeed so much,
That sure, methought, her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts, distractedly.”

_Twelfth Night._


Though most of the crew of the “Dolphin” slept, either in their
hammocks or among the guns, there were bright and anxious eyes still
open in a different part of the vessel. The Rover had relinquished his
cabin to Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude, from the moment they entered the
ship; and we shall shift the scene to that apartment, (already
sufficiently described to render the reader familiar with the objects
it contained), resuming the action of the tale at an early part of the
discourse just related in the preceding chapter.

It will not be necessary to dwell upon the feelings with which the
female inmates of the vessel had witnessed the disturbances of that
day; the conjectures and suspicions to which they gave rise may be
apparent in what is about to follow. A mild, soft light fell from the
lamp of wrought and massive silver that was suspended from the upper
deck, obliquely upon the painfully pensive countenance of the
governess, while a few of its strongest rays lighted the youthful
bloom, though less expressive because less meditative lineaments, of
her companion. The background was occupied, like a dark shadow in a
picture, by the dusky form of the slumbering Cassandra. At the moment
when we see fit to lift the curtain on this quiet scene of our drama,
the pupil was speaking, seeking, in the averted eyes of her
instructress, that answer to her question which the tongue of the
latter appeared reluctant to accord.

“I repeat, my dearest Madam,” said Gertrude, “that the fashion of these
ornaments, no less than their materials, is extraordinary in a ship.”

“And what would you infer from the same?”

“I know not. Still I would that we were safe in the house of my
father.”

“God grant it! It may be imprudent to be longer silent.—Gertrude,
frightful, horrible suspicions have been engendered in my mind by what
we have this day witnessed.”

The cheek of the maiden blanched, and the pupil of her soft eye
contracted, with alarm, while she seemed to demand an explanation with
every disturbed lineament of her countenance.

“I have long been familiar with the usages of a vessel of war,”
continued the governess, who had only paused in order to review the
causes of her suspicions in her own mind; “but never have I seen such
customs as, each hour, unfold themselves in this vessel.”

“Of what do you suspect her?”

The look of deep, engrossing, maternal anxiety, that the lovely
interrogator received in reply to this question, might have startled
one whose mind had been more accustomed to muse on the depravity of
human nature than the spotless being who received it; but to Gertrude
it conveyed no more than a general and vague sensation of alarm.

“Why do you thus regard me, my governess—my mother?” she exclaimed,
bending forward, and laying a hand imploringly on the arm of the other,
as if she would arouse her from a trance.

“Yes, I will speak: It is safer that you know the worst, than that your
innocence should be liable to be abused. I distrust the character of
this ship, and of all that belong to her.”

“All!” repeated her pupil, gazing fearfully, and a little wildly,
around.

“Yes; of all”

“There may be wicked and evil-intentioned men n his Majesty’s fleet;
but we are surely safe from them, since fear of punishment, if not fear
of disgrace will be our protector.”

“I dread lest we find that the lawless spirits, who harbour here,
submit to no laws except those of their own enacting, nor acknowledge
any authority but that which exists among themselves.”

“This would make them pirates!”

“And pirates, I fear, we shall find them.”

“Pirates? What! all?”

“Even all. Where one is guilty of such a crime, it is clear that the
associates cannot be free from suspicion.”

“But, dear Madam, we know that one among them, at least, is innocent;
since he came with ourselves and under circumstances that will not
admit of deception.”

“I know not. There are different degrees of turpitude, as there are
different tempers to commit it! I fear that all who may lay claim to be
honest, in this vessel, are here assembled.”

The eyes of Gertrude sunk to the floor, and her lips quivered, partly
in a tremour she could not control and perhaps in part through an
emotion that she found inexplicable to herself.

“Since we know whence our late companion came,” she said, in an under
tone, “I think you do him wrong, however right your suspicions may
prove as to the rest.”

“I may be wrong as to him, but it is important that we know the worst.
Command yourself, my love; our attendant ascends; some knowledge of the
truth may be gained from him.”

Mrs Wyllys gave her pupil an expressive sign to compose her features,
while she herself resumed her usual, pensive air, with a calmness of
mien that might have deceived one far more practised than the boy, who
now came slowly into the cabin. Gertrude buried her face in a part of
her attire, while the former addressed the individual who had just
entered in a tone equally divided between kindness and concern.

“Roderick, child,” she commenced, “your eyelids are getting heavy. This
service of a ship must be new to you?”

“It is so old as to keep me from sleeping on my watch,” coldly returned
the boy.

“A careful mother would be better for one of your years, than the
school of the boatswain. What is your age, Roderick?”

“I have seen years enough to be both wiser and better,” he answered,
not without a shade of thought settling on his brow. “Another month
will make me twenty.”

“Twenty! you trifle with my curiosity, urchin.”

“Did I say twenty, Madam! Fifteen would be nearer to the truth.”

“I believe you well. And how many of those years have you passed upon
the water?”

“But two, in truth; though I often think them ten; and yet there are
times when they seem but a day!”

“You are romantic early, boy. And how like you the trade of war?”

“War!”

“Of war. I speak plainly, do I not? Those who serve in a vessel that is
constructed expressly for battle, follow the trade of war.”

“Oh! yes; war is certainly our trade.”

“And have you yet seen any of its horrors? Has this ship been in combat
since your service?”

“This ship!”

“Surely this ship: Have you ever sailed in any other?”

“Never.”

“Then, it is of this ship that one must question you. Is prize-money
plenty among your crew?”

“Abundant; they never want.”

“Then the vessel and Captain are both favourites. The sailor loves the
ship and Commander that give him an active life.”

“Ay, Madam; our lives are active here. And some there are among us,
too, who love both ship and Commander.”

“And have you mother, or friend, to profit by your earnings?”

“Have I”—

Struck with the tone of stupor with which the boy responded to her
queries, the governess turned her head, to read, in a rapid glance, the
language of his countenance. He stood in a sort of senseless amazement
looking her full in the face, but with an eye far too vacant to prove
that he was sensible of the image that filled it.

“Tell me, Roderick,” she continued, careful not to alarm his jealousy
by any sudden allusion to his manner; “tell me of this life of yours.
You find it merry?”

“I find it sad.”

“’Tis strange. The young ship-boys are ever among the merriest of
mortals. Perhaps your officer treats you with severity.”

No answer was given.

“I am then right: Your Captain is a tyrant?”

“You are wrong: Never has he said harsh or unkind word to me.”

“Ah! then he is gentle and kind. You are very happy, Roderick.”

“I—happy, Madam!”

“I speak plainly, and in English—happy.”

“Oh! yes, we are all very happy here.”

“It is well. A discontented ship is no paradise. And you are often in
port, Roderick, to taste the sweets of the land?”

“I care but little for the land, Madam, could I only have friends in
the ship that love me.”

“And have you not? Is not Mr Wilder your friend?”

“I know but little of him; I never saw him before”—

“When, Roderick?”

“Before we met in Newport.”

“In Newport?”

“Surely you know we both came from Newport, last.”

“Ah! I comprehend you. Then, your acquaintance with Mr Wilder commenced
at Newport? It was while your ship was lying off the fort?”

“It was. I carried him the order to take command of the Bristol trader.
He had only joined us the night before.”

“So lately! It was a young acquaintance indeed. But I suppose your
Commander knew his merits?”

“It is so hoped among the people. But”—

“You were speaking, Roderick.”

“None here dare question the Captain for his reasons. Even _I_ am
obliged to be mute.”

“Even _you_!” exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, in a surprise that for the moment
overcame her self-restraint. But the thought in which the boy was lost
appeared to prevent his observing the sudden change in her manner.
Indeed, so little did he know what was passing, that the governess
touched the hand of Gertrude, and silently pointed out the insensible
figure of the lad, without the slightest apprehension that the movement
would be observed.

“What think you, Roderick,” continued his interrogator “would he refuse
to answer _us_ also?”

The boy started; and, as consciousness shot into his glance, it fell
upon the soft and speaking countenance of Gertrude.

“Though her beauty be so rare,” he answered with vehemence, “let her
not prize it too highly. Woman cannot tame his temper!”

“Is he then so hard of heart? Think you that a question from this fair
one would be denied?”

“Hear me, Lady,” he said, with an earnestness that was no less
remarkable than the plaintive softness of the tones in which he spoke;
“I have seen more, in the last two crowded years of my life, than many
youths would witness between childhood and the age of man. This is no
place for innocence and beauty. Oh! quit the ship, if you leave it as
you came, without a deck to lay your head under!”

“It may be too late to follow such advice,” Mrs Wyllys gravely replied,
glancing her eye at the silent Gertrude as she spoke. “But tell me more
of this extraordinary vessel. Roderick, you were not born to fill the
station in which I find you?”

The boy shook his head, but remained with downcast eyes, apparently not
disposed to answer further on such a subject.

“How is it that I find the ‘Dolphin’ bearing different hues to-day from
what she did yesterday? and why is it that neither then, nor now, does
she resemble in her paint, the slaver of Newport harbour?”

“And why is it,” returned the boy, with a smile in which melancholy
struggled powerfully with bitterness “that none can look into the
secret heart of him who makes those changes at will? If all remained
the same, but the paint of the ship, one might still be happy in her!”

“Then, Roderick, you are not happy: Shall I intercede with Captain
Heidegger for your discharge?”

“I could never wish to serve another.”

“How! Do you complain, and yet embrace your fetters?”

“I complain not.”

The governess eyed him closely; and, after a moment’s pause, she
continued,—

“Is it usual to see such riotous conduct among the crew as we have this
day witnessed?”

“It is not. You have little to fear from the people; he who brought
them under knows how to keep them down.”

“They are enlisted by order of the King?”

“The King! Yes, he is surely a King who has no equal.”

“But they dared to threaten the life of Mr Wilder. Is a seaman, in a
King’s ship, usually so bold?”

The boy glanced a look at Mrs Wyllys; as if he would say, he understood
her affected ignorance of the character of the vessel, but again he
chose to continue silent.

“Think you, Roderick,” continued the governess, who no longer deemed it
necessary to pursue her covert inquiries on that particular subject;
“think you, Roderick, that the Rov—that is, that Captain Heidegger will
suffer us to land at the first port which offers?”

“Many have been passed since you reached the ship.”

“Ay, many that are inconvenient; but, when one shall be gained where
his pursuits will allow his ship to enter?”

“Such places are not common.”

“But, should it occur, do you not think he will permit us to land? We
have gold to pay him for his trouble.”

“He cares not for gold. I never ask him for it; that he does not fill
my hand.”

“You must be happy, then. Plenty of gold will compensate for a cold
look at times.”

“Never!” returned the boy, with quickness and energy. “Had I the ship
filled with the dross, I would give it all to bring a look of kindness
into his eye.”

Mrs Wyllys started, no less at the fervid manner of the lad than at the
language. Rising from her seat, she approached nigher to him, and in a
situation where the light of the lamp fell full upon his lineaments.
She saw the large drop that broke out from beneath a long and silken
lash, to roll down a cheek which, though embrowned by the sun, was
deepening with a flush that gradually stole into it, as her own gaze
became more settled; and then her eyes fell slowly and keenly along the
person of the lad, until they reached even the delicate feet, that
seemed barely able to uphold him. The usually pensive and mild
countenance of the governess changed to a look of cold regard, and her
whole form appeared to elevate itself, in chaste matronly dignity, as
she sternly asked,—

“Boy, have you a mother?”

“I know not,” was the answer that came from lips that scarcely severed
to permit the smothered sounds to escape.

“It is enough; another time I will speak further to you. Cassandra will
in future do the service of this cabin; when I have need of you, the
gong shall be touched.”

The head of Roderick fell nearly to his bosom He shrunk from before
that cold and searching eye which followed his form, until it had
disappeared through the hatch, and whose look was then bent rapidly,
and not without a shade of alarm, on the face of the wondering but
silent Gertrude.

A gentle tap at the door broke in upon the flood of reflection which
was crowding on the mind of the governess. She gave the customary
answer; and, before time was allowed for any interchange of ideas
between her and her pupil, the Rover entered.




Chapter XXIII.

“I melt, and am not of stronger earth than others.”

_Coriolanus_


The females received their visiter with a restraint which will be
easily understood when the subject of their recent conversation is
recollected. The sinking of Gertrude’s form was deep and hurried, but
her governess maintained the coldness of her air with greater
self-composure. Still, there was a gleaming of powerful anxiety in the
watchful glance that she threw towards her guest, as though she would
divine the motive of the visit by the wanderings of his changeful eye,
even before his lips had parted in the customary salute.

The countenance of the Rover himself was thoughtful to gravity. He
bowed as he came within the influence of the lamp, and his voice was
heard muttering some low and hasty syllables, that conveyed no meaning
to the ears of his listeners. Indeed, so great was the abstraction in
which he was lost, that he had evidently prepared to throw his person
on the vacant divan, without explanation or apology, like one who took
possession of his own; though recollection returned just in time to
prevent this breach of decorum. Smiling, and repeating his bow, with a
still deeper inclination, he advanced with perfect self-possession to
the table, where he expressed his fears that Mrs Wyllys might deem his
visit unseasonable or perhaps not announced with sufficient ceremony.
During this short introduction his voice was bland as woman’s, and his
mien courteous, as though he actually felt himself an intruder in the
cabin of a vessel in which he was literally a monarch.

“But, unseasonable as is the hour,” he continued, “I should have gone
to my cott with a consciousness of not having discharged all the duties
of an attentive and considerate host, had I forgotten to reassure you
of the tranquillity of the ship, after the scene you have this day
witnessed. I have pleasure in saying, that the humour of my people is
already expended, and that lambs, in their nightly folds, are not more
placid than they are at this minute in their hammocks.”

“The authority that so promptly quelled the disturbance is happily ever
present to protect us,” returned the cautious governess; “we repose
entirely on your discretion and generosity.”

“You have not misplaced your confidence. From the danger of mutiny, at
least, you are exempt.”

“And from all others, I trust.”

“This is a wild and fickle element we dwell on,” he answered, while he
bowed an acknowledgment for the politeness, and took the seat to which
the other invited him by a motion of the hand; “but you know its
character, and need not be told that we seamen are seldom certain of
any of our movements I loosened the cords of discipline myself to-day,”
he added, after a moment’s pause, “and in some measure invited the
broil that followed: But it is passed, like the hurricane and the
squall; and the ocean is not now smoother than the tempers of my
knaves.”

“I have often witnessed these rude sports in vessels of the King; but I
do not remember to have known any more serious result than the
settlement of some ancient quarrel, or some odd freak of nautical
humour, which has commonly proved as harmless as it has been quaint.”

“Ay; but the ship which often runs the hazards of the shoals gets
wrecked at last,” muttered the Rover “I rarely give the quarter-deck up
to the people, without keeping a vigilant watch on their humours;
but—to-day”——

“You were speaking of to-day.”

“Neptune, with his coarse devices, is no stranger to you, Madam.”

“I have seen the God in times past.”

“’Twas thus I understood it;—under the line?”

“And elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere!” repeated the other, in a tone of disappointment. “Ay, the
sturdy despot is to be found in every sea; and hundreds of ships, and
ships of size too, are to be seen scorching in the calms of the
equator. It was idle to give the subject a second thought.”

“You have been pleased to observe something that has escaped my ear.”

The Rover started; for he had rather muttered than spoken the preceding
sentence aloud. Casting a swift and searching glance around him, as it
might be to assure himself that no impertinent listener had found means
to pry into the mysteries of a mind he seldom saw fit to lay open to
the free examination of his associates, he regained his self-possession
on the instant, and resumed the discourse with a manner as undisturbed
as if it had received no interruption.

“Yes, I had forgotten that your sex is often as timorous as it is
fair,” he added, with a smile so insinuating and gentle, that the
governess cast an involuntary and uneasy glance towards her charge, “or
I might have been earlier with my assurance of safety.”

“It is welcome even now.”

“And your young and gentle friend,” he continued, bowing openly to
Gertrude, though he still addressed his words to the governess; “her
slumbers will not be the heavier for what has passed.”

“The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow.”

“There is a holy and unsearchable mystery in that truth: The innocent
pillow their heads in quiet! Would to God the guilty might find some
refuge, too, against the sting of thought! But we live in a world, and
a time, when men cannot be sure even of themselves.”

He then paused, and looked about him, with a smile so haggard, that the
anxious governess unconsciously drew nigher to her pupil, like one who
sought, and was willing to yield, protection against the uncertain
designs of a maniac. Her visiter, however, remained in a silence so
long and deep, that she felt the necessity of removing the awkward
embarrassment of their situation, by speaking herself.

“Do you find Mr Wilder as much inclined to mercy as yourself?” she
asked. “There would be merit in his forbearance, since he appeared to
be the particular object of the anger of the mutineers.”

“And yet you saw he was not without his friends. You witnessed the
devotion of the men who stood forth in his behalf?”

“I did: and find it remarkable that he should have been able, in so
short a time, to conquer thus completely two so stubborn natures.”

“Four-and-twenty years make not an acquaintance of a day!”

“And does their friendship bear so old a date?”

“I have heard that time counted between them. It is very certain the
youth is bound to those uncouth companions of his by some extraordinary
tie. Perhaps this is not the first of their services.”

Mrs Wyllys looked grieved. Although prepared to believe that Wilder was
a secret agent of the Rover, she had endeavoured to hope his connexion
with the freebooters was susceptible of some explanation more
favourable to his character. However he might be implicated in the
common guilt of those who pursued the hazards of the reckless fortunes
of that proscribed ship, it was evident he bore a heart too generous to
wish to see her, and her young and guileless charge, the victims of the
licentiousness of his associates. His repeated and mysterious warnings
no longer needed explanation. Indeed, all that had been dark and
inexplicable, both in the previous and unaccountable glimmerings of her
own mind, and in the extraordinary conduct of the inmates of the ship,
was at each instant becoming capable of solution. She now remembered,
in the person and countenance of the Rover, the form and features of
the individual who had spoken the passing Bristol trader, from the
rigging of the slaver—a form which had unaccountably haunted her
imagination, during her residence in his ship, like an image recalled
from some dim and distant period. Then she saw at once the difficulty
that Wilder might prove in laying open a secret in which not only his
life was involved, but which, to a mind that was not hardened in vice,
involved a penalty not less severe—that of the loss of their esteem. In
short, a good deal of that which the reader has found no difficulty in
comprehending was also becoming clear to the faculties of the governess
though much still remained obscured in doubts, that she could neither
solve nor yet entirely banish from her thoughts. On all these several
points she had leisure to cast a rapid glance; for her guest, or host,
whichever he might be called, seemed in nowise disposed to interrupt
her short and melancholy reverie.

“It is wonderful,” Mrs Wyllys at length resumed, “that beings so
uncouth should be influenced by the same attachments as those which
unite the educated and the refined.”

“It is wonderful, as you say,” returned the other like one awakening
from a dream. “I would give a thousand of the brightest guineas that
ever came from the mint of George II. to know the private history of
that youth.”

“Is he then a stranger to you?” demanded Gertrude with the quickness of
thought.

The Rover turned an eye on her, that was vacant for the moment, but
into which consciousness and expression began to steal as he gazed,
until the foot of the governess was visibly trembling with the nervous
excitement that pervaded her entire frame.

“Who shall pretend to know the heart of man!” he answered, again
inclining his head as it might be in acknowledgment of her perfect
right to far deeper homage. “All are strangers, till we can read their
most secret thoughts.”

“To pry into the mysteries of the human mind, is a privilege which few
possess,” coldly remarked the governess. “The world must be often
tried, and thoroughly known, before we may pretend to judge of the
motives of any around us.”

“And yet it is a pleasant world to those who have the heart to make it
merry,” cried the Rover, with one of those startling transitions which
marked his manner. “To him who is stout enough to follow the bent of
his humour, all is easy. Do you know, that the true secret of the
philosopher is not in living for ever, but in living while you may. He
who dies at fifty, after a fill of pleasure, has had more of life than
he who drags his feet through a century, bearing the burden of the
world’s caprices, and afraid to speak above his breath, lest, forsooth,
his neighbour should find that his words were evil.”

“And yet are there some who find their pleasure in pursuing the
practices of virtue.”

“’Tis lovely in your sex to say it,” he answered with an air that the
sensitive governess fancied was gleaming with the growing
licentiousness of a free booter. She would now gladly have, dismissed
her visiter; but a certain flashing of the eye, and a manner that was
becoming gay by a species of unnatural effort, admonished her of the
danger of offending one who acknowledged no law but his own will.
Assuming a tone and a manner that were kind, while they upheld the
dignity of her sex, and pointing to sundry instruments of music that
formed part of the heterogeneous furniture of the cabin, she adroitly
turned the discourse, by saying,—

“One whose mind can be softened by harmony and whose feelings are so
evidently alive to the in fluence of sweet sounds, should not decry the
pleasures of virtue. This flute, and yon guitar, both call you master.”

“And, because of these flimsy evidences about my person, you are
willing to give me credit for the accomplishments you mention! Here is
another mistake of miserable mortality! Seeming is the everyday robe of
honesty. Why not give me credit for kneeling, morning and night, before
yon glittering bauble?” he added, pointing to the diamond crucifix
which hung, as usual, near the door of his own apartment.

“I hope, at least, that the Being, whose memory is intended to be
revived by that image, is not without your homage. In the pride of his
strength and prosperity, man may think lightly of the consolations that
can flow from a power superior to humanity: but those who have oftenest
proved their value feel deepest the reverence which is their due.”

The look of the governess had been averted from her companion; but,
filled with the profound sentiment she uttered, her mild reflecting eye
turned to him again, as, in a tone that was subdued, in respect for the
mighty Being whose attributes filled her mind, she uttered the above
simple sentiment. The gaze she met was earnest and thoughtful as her
own. Lifting a finger he laid it on her arm, with a motion so light as
to be scarcely perceptible, while he asked,—

“Think you we are to blame, if our temperaments incline more to evil
than power is given to resist?”

“It is only those who attempt to walk the path of life alone that
stumble. I shall not offend your manhood if I ask, do you never commune
with your God?”

“It is long since that name has been heard in this vessel, Lady, except
to aid in that miserable scoffing and profanity which simpler language
made too dull, But what is He, that unknown Deity, more than what man,
in his ingenuity, has seen fit to make him?”

“‘The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God,’” she answered, in
a voice so firm, that it startled even the ears of one so long
accustomed to the turbulence and grandeur of his wild profession.
“‘Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and
answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the
earth? Declare if thou hast understanding.’”

The Rover gazed long and silently on the flushed countenance of the
speaker. Bending his face in an unconscious manner aside, he said
aloud, evidently rather giving utterance to his thoughts than pursuing
the discourse,—

“Now, is there nothing more in this than what I have often heard, and
yet does it come over my feelings with the freshness of native air!”
Then rising, he approached his mild and dignified companion, adding, in
tones but little above a whisper, “Lady repeat those words; change not
a syllable, nor vary the slightest intonation of the voice, I pray
thee.”

Though amazed, and secretly alarmed at the request, Mrs Wyllys
complied; delivering the holy language of the inspired writers with a
fervour that found its support in the strength of her own emotions. Her
auditor listened like a being enthralled. For near a minute, neither
eye nor attitude was changed, but he stood at the feet of her who had
so simply and so powerfully asserted the majesty of God, as motionless
as the mast that rose behind him through the decks of that vessel which
he had so long devoted to the purposes of his lawless life. It was long
after her accents had ceased to fall on his ear, that he drew a deep
respiration, and once again opened his lips to speak.

“This is re-treading the path of life at a stride.” he said, suffering
his hand to fall upon that of his companion. “I know not why pulses,
which in common are like iron, beat so wildly and irregularly now.
Lady, this little and feeble hand might check a temper that has so
often braved the power of”—

His words suddenly ceased; for, as his eye unconsciously followed his
hand, it rested on the still delicate, but no longer youthful, member
of the governess Drawing a sigh, like one who felt himself awakened
from an agreeable though complete illusion he turned away, leaving his
sentence unfinished.

“You would have music!” he recklessly exclaimed aloud. “Then music
shall be heard, though its symphony be rung upon a gong!”

As he spoke, the wayward and vacillating being we have been attempting
to describe struck the instrument he named three blows, so quick and
powerfully, as to drown all other sensations in the confusion produced
by the echoing din. Though deeply mortified that he had so quickly
escaped from the influence she had partially acquired, and secretly
displeased at the unceremonious manner in which he had seen fit to
announce his independence again, the governess was aware of the
necessity of concealing her sentiments.

“This is certainly not the harmony I invited,” she said, so soon as the
overwhelming sounds had ceased to fill the ship; “nor do I think it of
a quality to favour the slumbers of those who seek their rest.”

“Fear nothing for them. The seaman sleeps with his ear near the port
whence the cannon bellows, and awakes at the call of the boatswain’s
whistle. He is too deeply schooled in habit, to think he has heard more
than a note of the flute; stronger and fuller than common, if you will,
but still a sound that has no interest for him. Another tap would have
sounded the alarm of fire; but these three touches say no more than
music. It was the signal for the band. The night is still, and
favourable for their art, and we will listen to sweet sounds awhile.”

His words were scarcely uttered before the low chords of wind
instruments were heard without, where the men had probably stationed
themselves by some previous order of their Captain. The Rover smiled,
as if he exulted in this prompt proof of the sort of despotic or rather
magical power he wielded; and, throwing his form on the divan, he sat
listening to the sounds which followed.

The strains which now rose upon the night, and which spread themselves
soft and melodiously abroad upon the water, would in truth have done
credit to far more regular artists. The air was wild and melancholy and
perhaps it was the more in accordance with the present humour of the
man for whose ear it was created. Then, losing the former character the
whole power of the music was concentrated in softer and still gentler
sounds, as if the genius who had given birth to the melody had been
pouring out the feelings of his soul in pathos. The temper of the
Rover’s mind answered to the changing expression of the music; and,
when the strains were sweetest and most touching, he even bowed his
head like one who wept.

Though secretly under the influence of the harmony themselves, Mrs
Wyllys and her pupil could but gaze on the singularly constituted being
into whose hands their evil fortune had seen fit to cast them. The
former was filled with admiration at the fearful contrariety of those
passions which could reveal themselves, in the same individual, under
so very different and so dangerous forms; while the latter, judging
with the indulgence and sympathy of her years, was willing to believe
that a man whose emotions could be thus easily and kindly excited was
rather the victim of circumstances than the creator of his own luckless
fortune.

“There is Italy in those strains,” said the Rover, when the last chord
had died upon his ear; “sweet, indolent, luxurious, forgetful Italy! It
has never been your chance, Madam, to visit that land, so mighty in its
recollections, and so impotent in its actual condition?”

The governess made no reply; but, bowing her head, in turn, her
companions believed she was submitting also to the influence of the
music. At length, as though impelled by another changeful impulse, the
Rover advanced towards Gertrude, and, addressing her with a courtesy
that would have done credit to a very different scene, he said, in the
laboured language that characterised the politeness of the age,—

“One who in common speaks music should not have neglected the gifts of
nature. You sing?”

Had Gertrude possessed the power he affected to believe, her voice
would have denied its services at his call. Bending to his compliment,
she murmured her apologies in words that were barely audible. He
listened intently; but, without pressing a point that it was easy to
see was unwelcome, he turned away, gave the gong a light but startling
tap.

“Roderick,” he continued, when the gentle foot step of the lad was
heard upon the stairs that led into the cabin below, “do you sleep?”

The answer was slow and smothered; and, of course, in the negative.

“Apollo was not absent at the birth of Roderick, Madam. The lad can
raise such sounds as have been known to melt the stubborn feelings of a
seaman. Go, place yourself by the cabin door, good Roderick, and bid
the music run a low accompaniment to your words.”

The boy obeyed, stationing his slight form so much in shadow, that the
expression of his working countenance was not visible to those who sat
within the stronger light of the lamp. The instruments then commenced a
gentle symphony, which was soon ended; and twice had they begun the
air, but still no voice was heard to mingle in the harmony.

“Words, Roderick, words; we are but dull interpreters of the meaning of
yon flutes.”

Thus admonished of his duty, the boy began to sing in a full, rich
contralto voice, which betrayed a tremour, however, that evidently
formed no part of the air. His words, so far as they might be
distinguished, ran as follows:—

“The land was lying broad and fair
Behind the western sea;
And holy solitude was there,
And sweetest liberty.

The lingering sun, at ev’ning, hung
A glorious orb, divinely beaming
On silent lake and tree;
And ruddy light was o’er all streaming,
Mark, man! for thee;
O’er valley, lake, and tree!

And now a thousand maidens stray,
Or range the echoing groves;
While, flutt’ring near, on pinions gay,
Fan twice ten thousand loves,
In that soft clime, at even time,
Hope says”——


“Enough of this, Roderick,” impatiently interrupted his master. “There
is too much of the Corydon in that song for the humour of a manner.
Sing us of the sea and its pleasures, boy; and roll out the strains in
such a fashion as may suit a sailor’s fancy.”

The lad continued mute, perhaps in disinclination to the task, perhaps
from utter inability to comply.

“What, Roderick! does the muse desert thee? or is memory getting dull?
You see the child is wilful in his melody, and must sing of loves and
sunshine or he fails. Now touch us a stronger chord my men, and put
life into your cadences, while I troll a sea air for the honour of the
ship.”

The band took the humour of the moment from their master, (for surely
he well deserved the name), sounding a powerful and graceful symphony,
to prepare the listeners for the song of the Rover. Those treacherous
and beguiling tones which so often stole into his voice when, speaking,
did not mislead expectation as to its powers. It proved to be at the
same time rich, full, deep, and melodious. Favoured by these material
advantages, and aided by an exquisite ear, he rolled out the following
stanzas in a manner that was singularly divided between that of the
reveller and the man of sentiment. The words were probably original;
for they both smacked strongly of his own profession, and were not
entirely without a touch of the peculiar taste of the individual

All hands, unmoor! unmoor
Hark to the hoarse, but welcome sound,
Startling the seaman’s sweetest slumbers.
The groaning capstan’s labouring round,
The cheerful fife’s enliv’ning numbers;.
And ling’ring idlers join the brawl,
And merry ship-boys swell the call,
All hands, unmoor! unmoor!

The cry is, “A sail! a sail!”
Brace high each nerve to dare the fight,
And boldly steer to seek the foeman;
One secret prayer to aid the right,
And many a secret thought to woman
Now spread the flutt’ring canvas wide,
And dash the foaming sea aside;
The cry’s, “A sail! a sail!”

Three cheers for victory!
Hush’d be each plaint o’er fallen brave;
Still ev’ry sigh to messmate given;
The seaman’s tomb is in the wave;
The hero’s latest hope is heaven!
High lift the voice in revelry!
Gay raise the song, the shout, the glee;
Three cheers for victory!


So soon as he had ended this song, and without waiting to listen if any
words of compliment were to succeed an effort that might lay claim to
great excellence both in tones and execution, he arose; and, desiring
his guests to command the services of his band at pleasure, he wished
them “soft repose and pleasant dreams,” and then coolly descended into
the lower apartments, apparently for the night. Mrs Wyllys and
Gertrude, notwithstanding both had been amused, or rather seduced, by
the interest thrown around a manner that was so wayward, while it was
never gross, felt a sensation, as he disappeared, like that produced by
breathing a freer air, after having been too long compelled to respire
the pent atmosphere of a dungeon. The former regarded her pupil with
eyes in which open affection struggled with deep inward solicitude; but
neither spoke, since a slight movement near the door of the cabin
reminded them they were not alone.

“Would you have further music, Madam?” asked Roderick, in a smothered
voice, stealing timidly out of the shadow as he spoke; “I will sing you
to sleep if you will; but I am choaked when he bids me thus be merry
against my feelings.”

The brow of the governess had already contracted, and she was evidently
preparing herself to give a stern and repulsive answer; but, as the
plaintive tones, and shrinking, submissive form of the other, pleaded
strongly to her heart, the frown passed away, leaving in its place a
mild reproving look, like that which chastens the frown of maternal
concern.

“Roderick,” she said, “I thought we should have seen you no more
to-night!”

“You heard the gong. Although he can be so gay, and can raise such
thrilling sounds in his pleasanter moments, you have never yet listened
to him in anger.”

“And is his anger, then, so very fearful?”

“Perhaps to me it is more frightful than to others, but I find nothing
so terrible as a word of his, when his mind is moody.”

“He is then harsh to you?”

“Never.”

“You contradict yourself, Roderick. He is, and he is not. Have you not
said how terrible you find his moody language?”

“Yes; for I find it changed. Once he was never thoughtful, or out of
humour, but latterly he is not himself.”

Mrs Wyllys did not answer. The language of the boy was certainly much
more intelligible to herself than to her young and attentive, but
unsuspecting, companion; for, while she motioned to the lad to retire,
Gertrude manifested a desire to gratify the curious interest she felt
in the life and manners of the freebooter. The signal, however, was
authoritatively repeated, and the lad slowly, and quite evidently with
reluctance, withdrew.

The governess and her pupil then retired into their own state-room;
and, after devoting many minutes to those nightly offerings and
petitions which neither ever suffered any circumstances to cause them
to neglect, they slept in the consciousness of innocence and in the
hope of an all-powerful protection. Though the bell of the ship
regularly sounded the hours throughout the watches of the night,
scarcely another sound arose, during the darkness, to disturb the calm
which seemed to have settled equally on the ocean and all that floated
on its bosom.




Chapter XXIV.

“But, for the miracle,
I mean our preservation, few in millions
Can speak like us.”

_Tempest._


The “Dolphin” might well have been likened to a slumbering beast of
prey, during those moments of treacherous calm. But as nature limits
the period of repose to the creatures of the animal world, so it would
seem that the inactivity of the freebooters was not doomed to any long
continuance. With the morning sun a breeze came over the water,
breathing the flavour of the land, to set the sluggish ship again in
motion. Throughout all that day, with a wide reach of canvas spreading
along her booms, her course was held towards the south. Watch succeeded
watch, and night came after day, and still no change was made in her
direction. Then the blue islands were seen heaving up, one after
another, out of the sea. The prisoners of the Rover, for thus the
females were now constrained to consider themselves, silently watched
each hillock of green that the vessel glided past, each naked and sandy
key, or each mountain side, until, by the calculations of the
governess, they were already steering amid the western Archipelago.

During all this time no question was asked which in the smallest manner
betrayed to the Rover the consciousness of his guests that he was not
conducting them towards the promised port of the Continent. Gertrude
wept over the sorrow her father would feel, when he should believe her
fate involved in that of the unfortunate Bristol trader; but her tears
flowed in private, or were freely poured upon the sympathizing bosom of
her governess. Wilder she avoided, with an intuitive consciousness that
he was no longer the character she had wished to believe, but to all in
the ship she struggled to maintain an equal air and a serene eye. In
this deportment, far safer than any impotent entreaties might have
proved, she was strongly supported by her governess, whose knowledge of
mankind had early taught her that virtue was never so imposing, in the
moments of trial, as when it knew best how to maintain its equanimity.
On the other hand, both the Commander of the ship and his lieutenant
sought no other communication with the inmates of the cabin, than
courtesy appeared absolutely to require.

The former, as though repenting already of having laid so bare the
capricious humours of his mind, drew gradually into himself, neither
seeking nor permitting familiarity with any; while the latter appeared
perfectly conscious of the constrained mien of the governess, and of
the altered though still pitying eye of her pupil. Little explanation
was necessary to acquaint Wilder with the reasons of this change.
Instead of seeking the means to vindicate his character, however, he
rather imitated their reserve. Little else was wanting to assure his
former friends of the nature of his pursuits; for even Mrs Wyllys
admitted to her charge, that he acted like one in whom depravity had
not yet made such progress as to have destroyed that consciousness
which is ever the surest test of innocence.

We shall not detain the narrative, to dwell upon the natural regrets in
which Gertrude indulged, as this sad conviction forced itself upon her
understanding, nor to relate the gentle wishes in which she did not
think it wrong to indulge, that one, who certainly was master of so
many manly and generous qualities, might soon be made to see the error
of his life, and to return to a course for which even her cold and
nicely judging governess allowed nature had so eminently endowed him.
Perhaps the kind emotions that had been awakened in her bosom, by the
events of the last fortnight, were not content to exhibit themselves in
wishes alone, and that petitions more personal, and even more fervent
than common, mingled in her prayers; but this is a veil which it is not
our province to raise, the heart of one so pure and so ingenuous being
the best repository for its own gentle feelings.

For several days the ship had been contending with the unvarying winds
of those regions. Instead of struggling, however, like a cumbered
trader, to gain some given port, the “Rover” suddenly altered her
course, and glided through one of the many passages that offered, with
the ease of a bird that is settling swiftly to its nest. A hundred
different sails were seen steering among the islands, but all were
avoided alike; the policy of the freebooters teaching them the
necessity of moderation, in a sea so crowded with vessels of war. After
the vessel had shot through one of the straits which divide the chain
of the Antilles, she issued in safety on the more open sea which
separates them from the Spanish Main. The moment the passage was
effected, and a broad and clear horizon was seen stretching on every
side of them, a manifest alteration occurred in the mien of every
individual of the crew. The brow of the Rover himself lost its
contraction; and the look of care, which had wrapped the whole man in a
mantle of reserve, disappeared, leaving him the reckless wayward being
we have more than once described. Even the men, whose vigilance had
needed no quickening in running the gauntlet of the cruisers which were
known to swarm in the narrower seas, appeared to breathe a freer air,
and sounds of merriment and thoughtless gaiety were once more heard in
a place over which the gloom of distrust had been so long and so
heavily cast.

On the other hand, the governess saw new ground for uneasiness in the
course the vessel was taking. While the islands were in view, she had
hoped, and surely not without reason, that their captor only awaited a
suitable occasion to place them in safety within the influence of the
laws of some of the colonial governments. Her own observation told her
there was so much of what was once good, if not noble, mingled with the
lawlessness of the two principal individuals in the vessel, that she
saw nothing that was visionary in such an expectation. Even the tales
of the time, which recounted the desperate acts of the freebooter, with
not a little of wild and fanciful exaggeration, did not forget to
include numberless striking instances of marked, and even chivalrous
generosity. In short, he bore the character of one who, while he
declared himself the enemy of all, knew how to distinguish between the
weak and the strong, and who often found as much gratification in
repairing the wrongs of the former, as in humbling the pride of the
latter.

But all her agreeable anticipations from this quarter were forgotten
when the last island of the groupe sunk into the sea behind them, and
the ship lay alone on an ocean which showed not another object above
its surface. As if now ready to lay aside the mask the Rover ordered
the sails to be reduced, and, neglecting the favourable breeze, the
vessel to be brought to the wind. In a word, as if no object called for
the immediate attention of her crew, the “Dolphin” came to a stand, in
the midst of the water her officers and people abandoning themselves to
their pleasures, or to idleness, as whim or inclination dictated.

“I had hoped that your convenience would have permitted us to land in
some of his Majesty’s islands,” said Mrs Wyllys, speaking for the first
time since her suspicions had been awakened on the subject of her
quitting the ship, and addressing her words to the self-styled Captain
Heidegger, just after the order to heave-to the vessel had been obeyed.
“I fear you find it irksome to be so long dispossessed of your cabin.”

“It cannot be better occupied,” he rather evasively replied; though the
observant and anxious governess fancied his eye was bolder, and his air
under less restraint, than when she had before dwelt on the same topic.
“If custom did not require that a ship should wear the colours of some
people, mine should always sport those of the fair.”

“And, as it is?”——

“As it is, I hoist the emblems that belong to the service I am in.”

“In fifteen days, that you have been troubled with my presence, it has
never been my good fortune to see those colours set.”

“No!” exclaimed the Rover, glancing his eye at her, as if to penetrate
her thoughts: “Then shall the uncertainty cease on the sixteenth.—Who’s
there, abaft?”

“No one better nor worse than Richard Fid,” returned the individual in
question, lifting his head from out a locker, into which it had been
thrust, as though its owner searched for some mislaid implement, and
who added a little quickly, when he ascertained by whom he was
addressed, “and always at your Honour’s orders.”

“Ah! ’Tis the friend of _our_ friend,” the Rover observed to Mrs
Wyllys, with an emphasis which the other understood. “He shall be my
interpreter. Come hither, lad; I have a word to exchange with you.”

“A thousand at your service, sir,” returned Richard unhesitatingly
complying; “for, though no great talker, I have always something
uppermost in my mind, which can be laid hold of at need.”

“I hope you find that your hammock swings easily in my ship?”

“I’ll not deny it, your Honour; for an easier craft, especially upon a
bow-line, might be hard to find.”

“And the cruise?—I hope you also find the cruise such as a seaman
loves.”

“D’ye see, sir, I was sent from home with little schooling, and so I
seldom make so free as to pretend to read the Captain’s orders.”

“But still you have your inclinations,” said Mrs. Wyllys, firmly, as
though determined to push the investigation even further than her
companion had intended.

“I can’t say that I’m wanting in natural feeling, your Ladyship,”
returned Fid, endeavouring to manifest his admiration of the sex, by
the awkward bow he made to the governess as its representative, “tho’f
crosses and mishaps have come athwart me as well as better men. I
thought as strong a splice was laid, between me and Kate Whiffle, as
was ever turned into a sheet-cable; but then came the law, with its
regulations and shipping articles, luffing short athwart my happiness,
and making a wreck at once of all the poor girl’s hopes, and a Flemish
account of my comfort.”

“It was proved that she had another husband?” said the Rover, nodding
his head, understandingly.

“Four, your Honour. The girl had a love of company, and it grieved her
to the heart to see an empty house: But then, as it was seldom more
than one of us could be in port at a time, there was no such need to
make the noise they did about the trifle. But envy did it all, sir;
envy, and the greediness of the land-sharks. Had every woman in the
parish as many husbands as Kate, the devil a bit would they have taken
up the precious time of judge and jury, in looking into the manner in
which a wench like her kept a quiet household.”

“And, since that unfortunate repulse, you have kept yourself altogether
out of the hands of matrimony?”

“Ay, ay; _since_, your Honour,” returned Fid, giving his Commander
another of those droll looks, in which a peculiar cunning struggled
with a more direct and straight-going honesty, “_since_, as you say
rightly, sir; though they talked of a small matter of a bargain that I
had made with another woman, myself; but, in overhauling the affair,
they found, that, as the shipping articles with poor Kate wouldn’t hold
together, why, they could make nothing at all of me; so I was
white-washed like a queen’s parlour and sent adrift.”

“And all this occurred after your acquaintance with Mr Wilder?”

“Afore, your Honour; afore. I was but a younker in the time of it,
seeing that it is four-and-twenty years, come May next, since I have
been towing at the stern of master Harry. But then, as I have had a
sort of family of my own, since that day, why, the less need, you know,
to be birthing myself again in any other man’s hammock.”

“You were saying, it is four-and-twenty years,” interrupted Mrs Wyllys,
“since you made the acquaintance of Mr Wilder?”

“Acquaintance! Lord, my Lady, little did he know of acquaintances at
that time; though, bless him! the lad has had occasion to remember it
often enough since.”

“The meeting of two men, of so singular merit, must have been somewhat
remarkable,” observed the Rover.

“It was, for that matter, remarkable enough, your Honour; though, as to
the merit, notwithstanding master Harry is often for overhauling that
part of the account, I’ve set it down for just nothing at all.”

“I confess, that, in a case where two men, both of whom are so well
qualified to judge, are of different opinions, I feel at a loss to know
which can have the right. Perhaps, by the aid of the facts, I might
form a truer judgment.”

“Your Honour forgets the Guinea, who is altogether of my mind in the
matter, seeing no great merit in the thing either. But, as you are
saying, sir, reading the log is the only true way to know how fast a
ship can go; and so, if this Lady and your Honour have a mind to come
at the truth of the affair why, you have only to say as much, and I
will put it all before you in creditable language.”

“Ah! there is reason in your proposition,” returned the Rover,
motioning to his companion to follow to a part of the poop where they
were less exposed to the observations of inquisitive eyes. “Now, place
the whole clearly before us; and then you may consider the merits of
the question disposed of definitively.”

Fid was far from discovering the smallest reluctance to enter on the
required detail; and, by the time he had cleared his throat, freshened
his supply of the weed, and otherwise disposed himself to proceed Mrs
Wyllys had so far conquered her reluctance to pry clandestinely into
the secrets of others, as to yield to a curiosity which she found
unconquerable and to take the seat to which her companion invited her
by a gesture of his hand.

“I was sent early to sea, your Honour, by my father,” commenced Fid,
after these little preliminaries had been duly observed, “who was, like
myself, a man that passed more of his time on the water than on dry
ground; though, as he was nothing more than a fisherman, he generally
kept the land aboard which is, after all, little better than living on
it altogether Howsomever, when I went, I made a broad offing at once,
fetching up on the other side of the Horn, the very first passage I
made; which was no small journey for a new beginner; but then, as I was
only eight years old”——

“Eight! you are now speaking of yourself,” interrupted the disappointed
governess.

“Certain, Madam; and, though genteeler people might be talked of, it
would be hard to turn the conversation on any man who knows better how
to rig or how to strip a ship. I was beginning at the right end of my
story; but, as I fancied your Ladyship might not choose to waste time
in hearing concerning my father and mother, I cut the matter short, by
striking in at eight years old, overlooking all about my birth and
name, and such other matters as are usually logged, in a fashion out of
all reason, in your everyday sort of narratives.”

“Proceed,” she rejoined, with a species of compelled resignation.

“My mind is pretty much like a ship that is about to slip off its
ways,” resumed Fid. “If she makes a fair start, and there is neither
jam nor dry-rub, smack see goes into the water, like a sail let run in
a calm; but, if she once brings up, a good deal of labour is to be gone
through to set her in motion again. Now, in order to wedge up my ideas,
and to get the story slushed, so that I can slip through it with ease,
it is needful to overrun the part which I have just let go; which is,
how my father was a fisherman, and how I doubled the Horn—Ah! here I
have it again, clear of kinks, fake above fake, like a well-coiled
cable; so that I can pay it out as easily as the boatswain’s yeoman can
lay his hand on a bit of ratling stuff. Well, I doubled the Horn, as I
was saying, and might have been the matter of four years cruising about
among the islands and seas of those parts, which were none of the best
known then, or for that matter, now. After this, I served in his
Majesty’s fleet a whole war, and got as much honour as I could stow
beneath hatches. Well, then, I fell in with the Guinea—the black, my
Lady, that you see turning in a new clue-garnet-block for the starboard
clue of the fore-course.”

“Ay; then you fell in with the African,” said the Rover.

“Then we made our acquaintance; and, although his colour is no whiter
than the back of a whale, I care not who knows it, after master Harry,
there is no man living who has an honester way with him, or in whose
company I take greater satisfaction. To be sure, your Honour, the
fellow is something contradictory and has a great opinion of his
strength and thinks his equal is not to be found at a weather-earing or
in the bunt of a topsail; but then he is no better than a black, and
one is not to be too particular in looking into the faults of such as
are not actually his fellow creatures.”

“No, no; that would be uncharitable in the extreme.”

“The very words the chaplain used to let fly aboard the ‘Brunswick!’ It
is a great thing to have schooling, your Honour; since, if it does
nothing else, it fits a man for a boatswain, and puts him in the track
of steering the shortest course to heaven. But, as I was saying, there
was I and Guinea shipmates and in a reasonable way friends, for five
years more; and then the time arrived when we met with the mishap of
the wreck in the West-Indies.”

“What wreck?” demanded his officer.

“I beg your Honour’s pardon; I never swing my head-yards till I’m sure
the ship won’t luff back into the wind; and, before I tell the
particulars of the wreck, I will overrun my ideas, to see that nothing
is forgotten that should of right be first mentioned.”

The Rover, who saw, by the uneasy glances that she cast aside, and by
the expression of her countenance how impatient his companion was
becoming for a sequel that approached so tardily, and how much she
dreaded an interruption, made a significant sign to her to permit the
straight-going tar to take his own course, as the best means of coming
at the facts they both longed so much to hear. Left to himself, Fid
soon took the necessary review of the transactions, in his own quaint
manner; and, having happily found that nothing which he considered as
germain to the present relation was omitted, he proceeded at once to
the more material, and what was to his auditors by far the most
interesting, portion of his narrative.

“Well, as I was telling your Honour,” he continued, “Guinea was then a
maintopman, and I was stationed in the same place aboard the
‘Proserpine,’ a quick-going two-and-thirty, when we fell in with a bit
of a smuggler, between the islands and the Spanish Main; and so the
Captain made a prize of her, and ordered her into port; for which I
have always supposed, as he was a sensible man, he had his orders. But
this is neither here nor there, seeing that the craft had got to the
end of her rope, and foundered in a heavy hurricane that came over us,
mayhap a couple of days’ run to leeward of our haven. Well, she was a
small boat; and, as she took it into her mind to roll over on her side
before she went to sleep, the master’s mate in charge, and three
others, slid off her decks to the bottom of the sea, as I have always
had reason to believe, never having heard any thing to the contrary. It
was here that Guinea first served me the good turn; for, though we had
often before shared hunger and thirst together, this was the first time
he ever jumped overboard to keep me from taking in salt water like a
fish.”

“He kept you from drowning with the rest?”

“I’ll not say just that much, your Honour; for there is no knowing what
lucky accident might have done the same good turn for me. Howsomever,
seeing that I can swim no better nor worse than a double-headed shot, I
have always been willing to give the black credit for as much, though
little has ever been said between us on the subject; for no other
reason, as I can see, than that settling-day has not yet come. Well, we
contrived to get the boat afloat, and enough into it to keep soul and
body together, and made the best of our way for the land, seeing that
the cruise was, to all useful purposes, over in that smuggler. I
needn’t be particular in telling this lady of the nature of boat-duty,
as she has lately had some experience in that way herself; but I can
tell her this much: Had it not been for that boat in which the black
and myself spent the better part of ten days, she would have fared but
badly in her own navigation.”

“Explain your meaning.”

“My meaning is plain enough, your Honour, which is, that little else
than the handy way of master Harry in a boat could have kept the
Bristol trader’s launch above water, the day we fell in with it.”

“But in what manner was your own shipwreck connected with the safety of
Mr Wilder?” demanded the governess, unable any longer to await the
dilatory explanation of the prolix seaman.

“In a very plain and natural fashion, my Lady, as you will say
yourself, when you come to hear the pitiful part of my tale. Well,
there were I and Guinea, rowing about in the ocean, on short allowance
of all things but work, for two nights and a day, heading-in for the
islands; for, though no great navigators, we could smell the land, and
so we pulled away lustily, when you consider it was a race in which
life was the wager, until we made, in the pride of the morning, as it
might be here, at east-and-by-south a ship under bare poles; if a
vessel can be called bare that had nothing better than the stumps of
her three masts standing, and they without rope or rag to tell one her
rig or nation. Howsomever, as there were three naked sticks left, I
have always put her down for a full-rigged ship; and, when we got nigh
enough to take a look at her hull, I made bold to say she was of
English build.”

“You boarded her,” observed the Rover.

“A small task that, your Honour, since a starved dog was the whole crew
she could muster to keep us off. It was a solemn sight when we got on
her decks, and one that bears hard on my manhood,” continued Fid, with
an air that grew more serious as he proceeded, “whenever I have
occasion to overhaul the log-book of memory.”

“You found her people suffering of want!”

“We found a noble ship, as helpless as a halibut in a tub. There she
lay, a craft of some four hundred tons, water-logged, and motionless as
a church. It always gives me great reflection, sir, when I see a noble
vessel brought to such a strait; for one may liken her to a man who has
been docked of his fins, and who is getting to be good for little else
than to be set upon a cat-head to look out for squalls.”

“The ship was then deserted?”

“Ay, the people had left her, sir, or had been washed away in the gust
that had laid her over. I never could come at the truth of them
particulars. The dog had been mischievous, I conclude, about the decks;
and so he had been lashed to a timber head, the which saved his life,
since, happily for him he found himself on the weather-side when the
hull righted a little, after her spars gave way. Well, sir there was
the dog, and not much else, as we could see, though we spent half a day
in rummaging round, in order to pick up any small matter that might be
useful; but then, as the entrance to the hold and cabin was full of
water, why, we made no great affair of the salvage, after all.”

“And then you left the wreck?”

“Not yet, your Honour. While knocking about among the bits of rigging
and lumber above board, says Guinea, says he, ‘Mister Dick, I hear some
one making their plaints below.’ Now, I had heard the same noises
myself, sir; but had set them down as the spirits of the people moaning
over their losses, and had said nothing of the same, for fear of
stirring up the superstition of the black; for the best of them are no
better than superstitious niggers, my Lady; so I said nothing of what I
had heard, until he saw fit to broach the subject himself. Then we both
turned-to to listening with a will; and sure enough the groans began to
take a human sound. It was a good while, howsomever, before I could
make up whether it was any thing more than the complaining of the hulk
itself; for you know, my Lady, that a ship which is about to sink makes
her lamentations just like any other living thing.”

“I do, I do,” returned the governess, shuddering. “I have heard them,
and never will my memory lose the recollection of the sounds.”

“Ay, I thought you might know something of the same, and solemn groans
they are: But, as the hulk kept rolling on the top of the sea, and no
further signs of her going down, I began to think it best to cut into
her abaft, in order to make sure that some miserable wretch had not
been caught in his hammock at the time she went over. Well, good will,
and an axe, soon let us into the secret of the moans.”

“You found a child?”

“And its mother, my Lady. As good luck would have it, they were in a
birth on the weather-side and as yet the water had not reached them.
But pent air and hunger had nearly proved as bad as the brine. The lady
was in the agony when we got her out; and as to the boy, proud and
strong as you now see him there on yonder gun, my Lady, he was just so
miserable, that it was no small matter to make him swallow the drop of
wine and water that the Lord had left us, in order, as I have often
thought since, to bring him up to be, as he at this moment is, the
pride of the ocean!”

“But, the mother?”

“The mother had given the only morsel of biscuit she had to the child,
and was dying, in order that the urchin might live. I never could get
rightly into the meaning of the thing, my Lady, why a woman, who is no
better than a Lascar in matters of strength, nor any better than a
booby in respect of courage, should be able to let go her hold of life
in this quiet fashion, when many a stout mariner would be fighting for
each mouthful of air the Lord might see fit to give. But there she was,
white as the sail on which the storm has long beaten, and limber as a
pennant in a calm, with her poor skinny arm around the lad, holding in
her hand the very mouthful that might have kept her own soul in the
body a little longer.”

“What did she, when you brought her to the light?”

“What did she!” repeated Fid, whose voice was getting thick and husky,
“why, she did a d——d honest thing; she gave the boy the crumb, and
motioned as well as a dying woman could, that we should have an eye
over him, till the cruise of life was up.”

“And was that all?”

“I have always thought she prayed; for something passed between her and
one who was not to be seen, if a man might judge by the fashion in
which her eyes were turned aloft, and her lips moved. I hope, among
others, she put in a good word for one Richard Fid; for certain she had
as little need to be asking for herself as any body. But no man will
ever know what she said, seeing that her mouth was shut from that time
for ever after.”

“She died!”

“Sorry am I to say it. But the poor lady was past swallowing when she
came into our hands, and then it was but little we had to offer her. A
quart of water, with mayhap a gill of wine, a biscuit, and a handful of
rice, was no great allowance for two hearty men to pull a boat some
seventy leagues within the tropics. Howsomever, when we found no more
was to be got from the wreck, and that, since the air had escaped by
the hole we had cut, she was settling fast, we thought it best to get
out of her: and sure enough we were none too soon, seeing that she went
under just as we had twitched our jolly-boat clear of the suction.”

“And the boy—the poor deserted child!” exclaimed the governess, whose
eyes had now filled to over-flowing.

“There you are all aback, my Lady. Instead of deserting him, we brought
him away with us, as we did the only other living creature to be found
about the wreck. But we had still a long journey before us, and, to
make the matter worse, we were out of the track of the traders. So I
put it down as a case for a council of all hands, which was no more
than I and the black, since the lad was too weak to talk and little
could he have said otherwise in our situation. So I begun myself,
saying, says I, ‘Guinea, we must eat either this here dog, or this here
boy. If we eat the boy, we shall be no better than the people in your
own country, who, you know, my Lady, are cannibals; but if we eat the
dog, poor as he is we may make out to keep soul and body together, and
to give the child the other matters.’—So Guinea, he says, says he,
‘I’ve no occasion for food at all; give ’em to the boy,’ says he,
‘seeing that he is little, and has need of strength.’ Howsomever,
master Harry took no great fancy to the dog, which we soon finished
between us; for the plain reason that he was so thin. After that, we
had a hungry time of it ourselves; for, had we not kept up the life in
the lad, you know, it would have slipt through our fingers.”

“And you fed the child, though fasting yourselves?”

“No, we wer’n’t altogether idle, my Lady, seeing that we kept our teeth
jogging on the skin of the dog, though I will not say that the food was
over savoury. And then, as we had no occasion to lose time in eating,
we kept the oars going so much the livelier. Well, we got in at one of
the islands after a time, though neither I nor the nigger had much to
boast of as to strength or weight when we made the first kitchen we
fell in with.”

“And the child?”

“Oh! he was doing well enough; for, as the doctors afterwards told us,
the short allowance on which he was put did him no harm.”

“You sought his friends?”

“Why, as for that matter, my Lady, so far as I have been able to
discover, he was with his best friends already. We had neither chart
nor bearings by which we knew how to steer in search of his family. His
name he called master Harry, by which it is clear he was a gentleman
born, as indeed any one may see by looking at him; but not another word
could I learn of his relations or country, except that, as he spoke the
English language, and was found in an English ship, there is a natural
reason to believe he is of English build himself.”

“Did you not learn the name of the ship?” demanded the attentive Rover,
in whose countenance the traces of a lively interest were very
distinctly discernible.

“Why, as to that matter, your Honour, schools were scarce in my part of
the country; and in Africa, you know, there is no great matter of
learning; so that, had her name been out of water, which it was not, we
might have been bothered to read it. Howsomever, there was a
horse-bucket kicking about her decks, and which, as luck would have it,
got jammed-in with the pumps in such a fashion that it did not go
overboard until we took it with us. Well, this bucket had a name
painted on it; and, after we had leisure for the thing, I got Guinea,
who has a natural turn at tattooing, to rub it into my arm in
gunpowder, as the handiest way of logging these small particulars. Your
Honour shall see what the black has made of it.”

So saying, Fid very coolly doffed his jacket, and laid bare, to the
elbow, one of his brawny arms, on which the blue impression was still
very plainly visible Although the letters were rudely imitated, it was
not difficult to read, in the skin, the words “Ark, of Lynnhaven.”

“Here, then, you had a clue at once to find the relatives of the boy,”
observed the Rover, after he had deciphered the letters.

“It seems not, your Honour; for we took the child with us aboard the
‘Proserpine,’ and our worthy Captain carried sail hard after the
people; but no one could give any tidings of such a craft as the ‘Ark,
of Lynnhaven;’ and, after a twelvemonth, or more, we were obliged to
give up the chase.”

“Could the child give no account of his friends?” demanded the
governess.

“But little, my Lady; for the reason he knew but little about himself.
So we gave the matter over altogether; I, and Guinea, and the Captain,
and all of us, turning-to to educate the boy. He got his seamanship of
the black and myself, and mayhap some little of his manners also; and
his navigation and Latin of the Captain, who proved his friend till
such a time as he was able to take care of himself, and, for that
matter, some years afterwards.”

“And how long did Mr Wilder continue in a King’s ship?” asked the
Rover, in a careless and apparently indifferent manner.

“Long enough to learn all that is taught there, your Honour,” was the
evasive reply.

“He came to be an officer, I suppose?”

“If he didn’t, the King had the worst of the bargain.—But what is this
I see hereaway, atween the backstay and the vang? It looks like a sail;
or is it only a gull flapping his wings before he rises?”

“Sail, ho!” called the look-out from the mast head. “Sail, ho!” was
echoed from a top and from the deck; the glittering though distant
object having struck a dozen vigilant eyes at the same instant. The
Rover was compelled to lend his attention to a summons so often
repeated; and Fid profited by the circumstance to quit the poop, with
the hurry of one who was not sorry for the interruption. Then the
governess arose too, and, thoughtful and melancholy she sought the
privacy of her cabin.




Chapter XXV.

“Their preparation is to-day by sea.”

_Anthony and Cleopatra._


“Sail, ho!” in the little frequented sea in which the “Rover” lay, was
a cry that quickened every dull pulsation in the bosoms of her crew.
Many weeks had now, according to their method of calculation, been
entirely lost in the visionary and profitless plans of their chief.
They were not of a temper to reason on the fatality which had forced
the Bristol trader from their toils; it was enough, for their rough
natures, that the rich spoil had escaped them. Without examining for
the causes of this loss, as has been already seen, they had been but
too well disposed to visit their disappointment on the head of the
innocent officer who was charged with the care of a vessel that they
already considered a prize. Here, then, was at length an opportunity to
repair their loss. The stranger was about to encounter them in a part
of the ocean where succour was nearly hopeless, and where time might be
afforded to profit, to the utmost, by any success that the freebooters
should obtain. Every man in the ship seemed sensible of these
advantages; and, as the words sounded from mast to yard, and from yard
to deck, they were taken up in cheerful echos from fifty mouths, which
repeated the cry, until it was heard issuing from the inmost recesses
of the vessel.

The Rover himself manifested more than usual satisfaction at this
prospect of a capture. He was quite aware of the necessity of some
brilliant or of some profitable exploit, to curb the rising tempers of
his men; and long experience had taught him that he could ever draw the
cords of discipline the tightest in moments that appeared the most to
require the exercise of his own high courage and consummate skill. He
walked forward, therefore, among his people, with a countenance that
was no longer buried in reserve, speaking to several, whom he addressed
by name, and of whom he did not even disdain to ask opinions concerning
the character of the distant sail. When a sort of implied assurance
that their recent offences were overlooked had thus been given, he
summoned Wilder, the General, and one or two others of the superior
officers, to the poop, where they all disposed themselves, to make more
particular and more certain observations, by the aid of a half-dozen
excellent glasses.

Many minutes were now passed in silent and intense scrutiny. The day
was cloudless, the wind fresh, without being heavy, the sea long, even,
and far from high, and, in short, all things combined, as far as is
ever seen on the restless ocean, not only to aid their examination, but
to favour those subsequent evolutions which each instant rendered more
probable would become necessary.

“It is a ship!” exclaimed the Rover, lowering his glass, the first to
proclaim the result of his long and close inspection.

“It is a ship!” echoed the General, across whose disciplined features a
ray of something like animated satisfaction was making an effort to
display itself.

“A full-rigged ship!” continued a third, relieving his eye in turn, and
answering to the grim smile of the soldier.

“There must be something to hold up all those lofty spars,” resumed
their Commander. “A hull of price is beneath.—But you say nothing, Mr
Wilder! You make her out”——

“A ship of size,” returned our adventurer, who, though hitherto silent,
had been far from the least interested in his investigations. “Does my
glass deceive me—or”——

“Or what, sir?”

“I see her to the heads of her courses.”

“You see her as I do. It is a tall ship on an easy bow-line, with every
thing set that will draw. And she is standing hitherward. Her lower
sails have lifted within five minutes.”

“I thought as much. But”——

“But what, sir? There can be little doubt but she is heading
north-and-east. Since she is so kind as to spare us the pains of a
chase, we will not hurry our movements. Let her come on. How like you
the manner of the stranger’s advance, General?”

“Unmilitary, but enticing! There is a look of the mines about her very
royals.”

“And you, gentlemen, do you also see the fashion of a galleon in her
upper sails?”

“’Tis not unreasonable to believe it,” answered one of the inferiors.
“The Dons are said to run this passage often, in order to escape
speaking us gentlemen, who sail with roving commissions.”

“Ah! your Don is a prince of the earth! There is charity in lightening
his golden burden, or the man would sink under it, as did the Roman
matron under the pressure of the Sabine shields. I think you see no
such gilded beauty in the stranger, Mr Wilder.”

“It is a heavy ship!”

“The more likely to bear a noble freight. You are new, sir, to this
merry trade of ours, or you would know that size is a quality we always
esteem in our visitors. If they carry pennants, we leave them to
meditate on the many ‘slips which exist between the cup and the lip;’
and, if stored with metal no more dangerous than that of Potosi, they
generally sail the faster after passing a few hours in our company.”

“Is not the stranger making signals?” demanded Wilder, thoughtfully.

“Is he so quick to see us! A good look-out must be had, when a vessel,
that is merely steadied by her stay-sails, can be seen so far.
Vigilance is a never-failing sign of value!”

A pause succeeded, during which all the glasses, in imitation of that
of Wilder, were again raised in the direction of the stranger.
Different opinions were given; some affirming, and some doubting, the
fact of the signals. The Rover himself was silent, though his
observation was keen, and long continued.

“We have wearied oar eyes till sight is getting dim,” he said. “I have
found the use of trying fresh organs when my own have refused to serve
me. Come hither, lad,” he continued, addressing a man who was executing
some delicate job in seamanship on the poop, at no great distance from
the spot where the groupe of officers had placed themselves; “come
hither: Tell me what you make of the sail in the south-western board.”

The man proved to be Scipio, who had been chosen for his expertness, to
perform the task in question. Placing his cap on the deck, in a
reverence even deeper than that which the seaman usually manifests
toward his superior, he lifted the glass in one hand, while with the
other he covered the eye that had at the moment no occasion for the use
of its vision. But no sooner did the wandering instrument fall on the
distant object, than he dropped it again, and fastened his look, in a
sort of stupid admiration, on Wilder.

“Did you see the sail?” demanded the Rover.

“Masser can see him wid he naked eye.”

“Ay, but what make you of him by the aid of the glass?”

“He’m ship, sir.”

“True. On what course?”

“He got he starboard tacks aboard, sir.”

“Still true. But has he signals abroad?”

“He’m got t’ree new cloths in he maintop-gallant royal, sir.”

“His vessel is all the better for the repairs. Did you see his flags?”

“He’m show no flag, masser.”

“I thought as much myself. Go forward, lad—stay—one often gets a true
idea by seeking it where it is not thought to exist. Of what size do
you take the stranger to be?”

“He’m just seven hundred and fifty tons, masser.”

“How’s this! The tongue of your negro, Mr. Wilder, is as exact as a
carpenter’s rule. The fellow speaks of the size of a vessel, that is
hull down, with an air as authoritative as a runner of the King’s
customs could pronounce on the same, after she had been submitted to
the office admeasurement.”

“You will have consideration for the ignorance of the black; men of his
unfortunate state are seldom skilful in answering interrogatories.”

“Ignorance!” repeated the Rover, glancing his eye uneasily, and with a
rapidity peculiar to himself, from one to the other, and from both to
the rising object in the horizon: “Skilful! I know not: The man has no
air of doubt.—You think her tonnage to be precisely that which you have
said?”

The large dark eyes of Scipio roiled, in turn, from his new Commander
to his ancient master, while, for a moment, his faculties appeared to
be lost in inextricable confusion. But the uncertainty continued only
for a moment. He no sooner read the frown that was gathering deeply
over the brow of the latter, than the air of confidence with which he
had pronounced his former opinion vanished in a look of obstinacy so
settled, that one might well have despaired of ever driving, or
enticing, him again to seem to think.

“I ask you, if the stranger may not be a dozen tons larger or smaller
than what you have named?” continued the Rover, when he found his
former question was not likely to be soon answered.

“He’m just as masser wish ’em,” returned Scipio.

“I wish him a thousand; since he will then prove the richer prize.”

“I s’pose he’m quite a t’ousand, sir.”

“Or a snug ship of three hundred, if lined with gold, might do.”

“He look berry like a t’ree hundred.”

“To me it seems a brig.”

“I t’ink him brig too, masser.”

“Or possibly, after all, the stranger may prove a schooner, with many
lofty and light sails.”

“A schooner often carry a royal,” returned the black, resolute to
acquiesce in all the other said.

“Who knows it is a sail at all! Forward there! It may be well to have
more opinions than one on so weighty a matter. Forward there! send the
foretop-man that is called Fid upon the poop. Your companions are so
intelligent and so faithful, Mr. Wilder, that you are not to be
surprised if I shew an undue desire for their information.”

Wilder compressed his lips, and the rest of the groupe manifested a
good deal of amazement; but the latter had been too long accustomed to
the caprice of their Commander, and the former was too wise, to speak
at a moment when his humour seemed at the highest. The topman, however,
was not long in making his appearance, and then the chief saw fit again
to break the silence.

“And you think it questionable whether it be a sail at all?” he
continued.

“He’m sartain nothing but a fly-away,” returned the obstinate black.

“You hear what your friend the negro says, master Fid; he thinks that
yonder object, which is lifting so fast to leeward, is not a sail.”

As the topman saw no sufficient reason for concealing his astonishment
at this wild opinion, it was manifested with all the embellishments
with which the individual in question usually set forth any of his more
visible emotions. After casting a short glance in the direction of the
sail, in order to assure himself there had been no deception, he turned
his eyes in great disgust on Scipio, as if he would vindicate the
credit of the association at the expense of some little contempt for
the ignorance of his companion.

“What the devil do you take it for, Guinea? a church?”

“I t’ink he’m church,” responded the acquiescent black.

“Lord help the dark-skinned fool! Your Honour knows that conscience is
d——nab-y overlooked in Africa, and will not judge the nigger hardly for
any little blunder he may make in the account of his religion. But the
fellow is a thorough seaman, and should know a top-gallant-sail from a
weathercock. Now, look you, S’ip, for the credit of your friends, if
you’ve no great pride on your own behalf, just tell his”——

“It is of no account,” interrupted the Rover. “Take you this glass, and
pass an opinion on the sail in sight yourself.”

Fid scraped his foot, and made a low bow, in acknowledgment of the
compliment; and then, depositing his little tarpaulin hat on the deck
of the poop, he very composedly, and, as he flattered himself, very
understandingly, disposed of his person to take the desired view. The
gaze of the topman was far longer than had been that of his black
companion; and it is to be presumed, in consequence, much more
accurate. Instead, however, of venturing any sudden opinion, when his
eye was wearied, he lowered the glass, and with it his head, standing
long in the attitude of one whose thoughts had received some subject of
deep cogitation. During the process of thinking, the weed was
diligently rolled over his tongue, and one hand was stuck a-kimbo into
his side, as if he would brace all his faculties to support some
extraordinary mental effort.

“I wait your opinion,” resumed his attentive Commander, when he thought
sufficient time had been allowed to mature the opinion even of Richard
Fid.

“Will your Honour just tell me what day of the month this here may be,
and mayhap, at the same time, the day of the week too, if it shouldn’t
be giving too much trouble?”

His two questions were directly answered.

“We had the wind at east-with-southing, the first day out, and then it
chopped in the night, and blew great guns at north-west, where it held
for the matter of a week. After which there was an Irishman’s
hurricane, right up and down, for a day; then we got into these here
trades, which have stood as steady as a ship’s chaplain over a punch
bowl, ever since.”——

Here the topman closed his soliloquy, in order to agitate the tobacco
again, it being impossible to conduct the process of chewing and
talking at one and the same time.

“What of the stranger?” demanded the Rover, a little impatiently.

“It’s no church, that’s certain, your Honour,” said Fid, very
decidedly.

“Has he signals flying?”

“He may be speaking with his flags, but it needs a better scholar than
Richard Fid to know what he would say. To my eye, there are three new
cloths in his main-top-gallant-royal, but no bunting abroad.”

“The man is happy in having so good a sail. Mr Wilder, do _you_ too see
the darker cloths in question?”

“There is certainly something which might be taken for canvas newer
than the rest. I believe I first mistook the same, as the sun fell
brightest on the sail, for the signals I named.”

“Then we are not seen, and may lie quiet for a while, though we enjoy
the advantage of measuring the stranger, foot by foot—even to the new
cloths in his royal!”

The Rover spoke in a tone that was strangely divided between sarcasm
and thought. He then made an impatient gesture to the seamen to quit
the poop. When they were alone, he turned to his silent and respectful
officers, continuing, in a manner that was grave, while it was
conciliatory,——

“Gentlemen,” he said, “our idle time is past, and fortune has at length
brought activity into our track. Whether the ship in sight be of just
seven hundred and fifty tons, is more than I can pretend to pronounce,
but something there is which any seaman may know. But the squareness of
her upper-yards, the symmetry with which they are trimmed, and the
press of canvass she bears on the wind, I pronounce her to be a vessel
of war. Do any differ from my opinion? Mr. Wilder, speak.”

“I feel the truth of all your reasons, and think with you.”

A shade of gloomy distrust, which had gathered over the brow of the
Rover during the foregoing scene, lighted a little as he listened to
the direct and frank avowal of his lieutenant.

“You believe she bears a pennant? I like this manliness of reply. Then
comes another question. Shall we fight her?”

To this interrogatory it was not so easy to give a decisive answer.
Each officer consulted the opinions of his comrades, in their eyes,
until their leader saw fit to make his application still more personal.

“Now, General, this is a question peculiarly fitted for your wisdom,”
he resumed: “Shall we give battle to a pennant? or shall we spread our
wings, and fly?”

“My bullies are not drilled to the retreat. Give them any other work to
do, and I will answer for their steadiness.”

“But shall we venture, without a reason?”

“The Spaniard often sends his bullion home under cover of a cruiser’s
guns,” observed one of the inferiors, who rarely found pleasure in any
risk that did not infer its correspondent benefit. “We may feel the
stranger; if he carries more than his guns, he will betray it by his
reluctance to speak, but if poor, we shall find him fierce as a
half-fed tiger.”

“There is sense in your counsel, Brace, and it shall be regarded. Go
then, gentlemen, to your several duties. We’ll pass the half hour that
may be needed, before his hull shall rise, in looking to our gear, and
overhauling the guns. As it is not decided to fight, let what is done
be done without display. My people must see no receding from a
resolution taken.”

The groupe then separated, each man preparing to undertake the task
that more especially belonged to the situation that he filled in the
ship. Wilder was about to retire with the rest, but a significant sign
drew him to the side of his chief, who continued on the poop alone with
his new confederate.

“The monotony of our lives is now likely to be interrupted, Mr Wilder,”
commenced the former, first glancing his eye around, to make sure they
were alone. “I have seen enough of your spirit and steadiness, to be
sure, that, should accident disable me to conduct the fortunes of these
people, my authority will fall into firm and able hands.”

“Should such a calamity befall us, I hope it may be found that your
expectations shall not be deceived.”

“I have confidence, sir; and, where a brave man reposes his confidence,
he has a right to hope it will not be abused. I speak in reason.”

“I acknowledge the justice of your words.”

“I would, Wilder, that we had known each other earlier. But what
matters vain regrets! These fellows of yours are keen of sight to note
those cloths so soon!”

“’Tis just the observation of people of their class. The nicer
distinctions which marked the cruiser came first from yourself!”

“And then the ‘seven hundred and fifty tons of the black!—It was giving
an opinion with great decision.”

“It is the quality of ignorance to be positive.”

“You say truly. Cast an eye at the stranger, and tell me how he comes
on.”

Wilder obeyed, seemingly glad to be relieved from a discourse that he
might have found embarrassing. Many moments were passed before he
dropped the glass, during which time not a syllable fell from the lips
of his companion. When he turned, however, to deliver the result of his
observations, he met an eye, that seemed to pierce his soul, fastened
on his countenance. Colouring highly, as if he resented the suspicion
betrayed by the act, Wilder closed his half-open lips, and continued
silent.

“And the ship?” deeply demanded the Rover.

“The ship has already raised her courses; in a few more minutes we
shall see the hull.”

“It is a swift vessel! She is standing directly for us.”

“I think not. Her head is lying more at east.”

“It may be well to make certain of that fact. You are right,” he
continued, after taking a look himself at the approaching cloud of
canvas; “you are very right. As yet we are not seen. Forward there!
haul down that head stay-sail; we will steady the ship by her yards.
Now let him look with all his eyes; they must be good to see these
naked spars at such a distance.”

Our adventurer made no reply, assenting to the truth of what the other
had said by a simple inclination of his head. They then resumed the
walk to and fro in their narrow limits, neither manifesting, however,
any anxiety to renew the discourse.

“We are in good condition for the alternative of flight or combat,” the
Rover at length observed, while he cast a rapid look over the
preparations which had been unostentatiously in progress from the
moment when the officers dispersed. “Now will I confess, Wilder, a
secret pleasure in the belief that yonder audacious fool carries the
boasted commission of the German who wears the Crown of Britain. Should
he prove more than man may dare attempt, I will flout him; though
prudence shall check any further attempts; and, should he prove an
equal, would it not gladden your eyes to see St. George come drooping
to the water?”

“I thought that men in our pursuit left honour to silly heads, and that
we seldom struck a blow that was not intended to ring on a metal more
precious than iron.”

“’Tis the character the world gives; but I, for one, would rather lower
the pride of the minions of King George than possess the power of
unlocking his treasury! Said I well, General?” he added, as the
individual he named approached; “said I well, in asserting there was
glorious pleasure in making a pennant trail upon the sea?”

“We fight for victory,” returned the martinet. “I am ready to engage at
a minute’s notice.”

“Prompt and decided, as a soldier.—Now tell me, General, if Fortune, or
Chance, or Providence, whichever of the powers you may acknowledge for
a leader were to give you the option of enjoyments, in what would you
find your deepest satisfaction?”

The soldier seemed to ruminate, ere he answered,——

“I have often thought, that, were I commander of things on earth, I
should, backed by a dozen of my stoutest bullies, charge at the door of
that cave which was entered by the tailor’s boy, him they call
Aladdin.”

“The genuine aspirations of a freebooter! In such case, the magic trees
would soon be disburdened of their fruit. Still it might prove an
inglorious victory, since incantations and charms are the weapons of
the combatants. Call you honour nothing?”

“Hum! I fought for honour half of a reasonably long life, and found
myself as light at the close of all my dangers as at the beginning.
Honour and I have shaken hands, unless it be the honour of coming off
conqueror. I have a strong disgust of defeat, but am always ready to
sell the mere honour of the victory cheap.”

“Well, let it pass. The quality of the service is much the same, find
the motive where you will.—How now! who has dared to let yonder
top-gallant-sail fly?”

The startling change in the voice of the Rover caused all within
hearing of his words to tremble. Deep, anxious, and threatening
displeasure was in all its tones, and each man cast his eyes upwards,
to see on whose devoted head the weight of the dreaded indignation of
their chief was about to fall. As there was little but naked spars and
tightened ropes to obstruct the view, all became, at the same instant,
apprized of the truth. Fid was standing on the head of that topmast
which belonged to the particular portion of the vessel where he was
stationed, and the sail in question was fluttering, with all its gear
loosened far and high in the wind. His hearing had probably been
drowned by the heavy flapping of the canvas; for, instead of lending
his ears to the deep powerful call just mentioned, he rather stood
contemplating his work, than exhibiting any anxiety as to the effect it
might produce on the minds of those beneath him. But a second warning
came in tones too terrible to be any longer disregarded by ears even as
dull as those of the offender.

“By whose order have you dared to loosen the sail?” demanded the Rover.

“By the order of King Wind, your Honour. The best seaman must give in,
when a squall gets the upper hand.”

“Furl it! away aloft, and furl it!” shouted the excited leader. “Roll
it up; and send the fellow down who has been so bold as to own any
authority but my own in this ship, though it were that of a hurricane.”

A dozen nimble topmen ascended to the assistance of Fid. In another
minute, the unruly canvas was secured, and Richard himself was on his
way to the poop. During this brief interval, the brow of the Rover was
dark and angry as the surface of the element on which he lived, when
blackened by the tempest. Wilder, who had never before seen his new
Commander thus excited, began to tremble for the fate of his ancient
comrade, and drew nigher, as the latter approached, to intercede in his
favour, should the circumstances seem to require such an interposition.

“And why is this?” the still stern and angry leader demanded of the
offender. “Why is it that you, whom I have had such recent reason to
applaud, should dare to let fly a sail, at a moment when it is
important to keep the ship naked?”

“Your Honour will admit that his rations sometimes slips through the
best man’s fingers, and why not a bit of canvas?” deliberately returned
the delinquent “If I took a turn too many of the gasket off the yard,
it is a fault I am ready to answer for.”

“You say true, and dearly shall you pay the forfeit Take him to the
gangway, and let him make acquaintance with the cat.”

“No new acquaintance, your Honour, seeing that we have met before, and
that, too, for matters which I had reason to hide my head for; whereas,
here, it may be many blows, and little shame.”

“May I intercede in behalf of the offender?” interrupted Wilder, with
earnestness and haste. “He is often blundering, but rarely would he
err, had he as much knowledge as good-will.”

“Say nothing about it, master Harry,” returned the topman, with a
peculiar glance of his eye. “The sail has been flying finely, and it is
now too late to deny it: and so, I suppose, the fact must be scored on
the back of Richard Fid, as you would put any other misfortune into the
log.”

“I would he might be pardoned. I can venture to promise, in his name,
’twill be the last offence”—

“Let it be forgotten,” returned the Rover, struggling powerfully to
conquer his passion. “I will not disturb our harmony at such a moment,
Mr Wilder, by refusing so small a boon: but you need not be told to
what evil such negligence might lead. Give me the glass again; I will
see if the fluttering canvas has escaped the eye of the stranger.”

The topman bestowed a stolen but exulting glance on Wilder, and then
the latter motioned the other hastily away, turning himself to join his
Commander in the examination.




Chapter XXVI.

“As I am an honest man, he looks pale: Art thou sick, or angry?”

_Much ado about Nothing._


The approach of the strange sail was becoming rapidly more and more
visible to the naked eye. The little speck of white, which had first
been seen on the margin of the sea, resembling some gull floating on
the summit of a wave, had gradually arisen during the last half hour,
until a tall pyramid of canvas was reared on the water. As Wilder bent
his look again on this growing object, the Rover put a glass into his
hands, with an expression of feature which the other understood to say,
“You may perceive that the carelessness of your dependant has already
betrayed us!” Still the look was one rather of regret than of reproach;
nor did a single syllable of the tongue confirm the meaning language of
the eye. On the contrary, it would seem that his Commander was anxious
to preserve their recent amicable compact inviolate; for, when the
young mariner attempted an awkward explanation of the probable causes
of the blunder of Fid, he was met by a quiet gesture, which said, in a
sufficiently intelligible language, that the offence was already
pardoned.

“Our neighbour keeps a good look-out, as you may see,” observed the
other. “He has tacked, and is laying boldly up across our fore-foot.
Well, let him come on; we shall soon get a look at his battery, and
then may we come to our conclusion as to the nature of the intercourse
we are to hold.”

“If you permit the stranger to near us, it might be difficult to throw
him off the chase, should we be glad to get rid of him.”

“It must be a fast-going vessel to which the ‘Dolphin’ cannot spare a
top-gallant-sail.”

“I know not, sir. The sail in sight is swift on the wind, and it is to
be believed that she is no duller off. I have rarely known a vessel
rise so rapidly as she has done since first we made her.”

The youth spoke with such earnestness, as to draw the attention of his
companion from the object he was studying to the countenance of the
speaker.

“Mr Wilder,” he said quickly, and with an air of decision, “you know
the ship?”

“I’ll not deny it. If my opinion be true, she will be found too heavy
for the ‘Dolphin,’ and a vessel that offers little inducement for us to
attempt to carry.”

“Her size?”

“You heard it from the black.”

“Your followers know her also?”

“It would be difficult to deceive a topman in the cut and trim of sails
among which he has passed months, nay years.”

“I understand the ‘new cloths’ in her top-gallant-royal! Mr Wilder,
your departure from that vessel has been recent?”

“As my arrival in this.”

The Rover continued silent for several minutes communing with his own
thoughts. His companion made no offer to disturb his meditations;
though the furtive glances, he often cast in the direction of the
other’s musing eye, betrayed some little anxiety to learn the result of
his self-communication.

“And her guns?” at length his Commander abruptly demanded.

“She numbers four more than the ‘Dolphin.’”

“The metal?”

“Is still heavier. In every particular is she a ship a size above your
own.”

“Doubtless she is the property of the King?”

“She is.”

“Then shall she change her masters. By heaven she shall be mine!”

Wilder shook his head, answering only with an incredulous smile.

“You doubt it,” resumed the Rover. “Come hither, and look upon that
deck. Can he whom you so lately quitted muster fellows like these, to
do his biddings?”

The crew of the ‘Dolphin’ had been chosen, by one who thoroughly
understood the character of a seaman, from among all the different
people of the Christian world. There was not a maritime nation in
Europe which had not its representative among; that band of turbulent
and desperate spirits. Even the descendant of the aboriginal possessors
of America had been made to abandon the habits and opinions of his
progenitors, to become a wanderer on that element which had laved the
shores of his native land for ages, without exciting a wish to
penetrate its mysteries in the bosoms of his simple-minded ancestry.
All had been suited, by lives of wild adventure, on the two elements,
for their present lawless pursuits and, directed by the mind which had
known how to obtain and to continue its despotic ascendancy over their
efforts, they truly formed a most dangerous and (considering their
numbers) resistless crew. Their Commander smiled in exultation, as he
watched the evident reflection with which his companion contemplated
the indifference, or fierce joy, which different individuals among them
exhibited at the appearance of an approaching conflict. Even the rawest
of their numbers, the luckless waisters and after-guard, were
apparently as confident of victory as those whose audacity might plead
the apology of uniform and often repeated success.

“Count you these for nothing?” asked the Rover, at the elbow of his
lieutenant, after allowing him time to embrace the whole of the grim
band with his eye. “See! here is a Dane, ponderous and steady as the
gun at which I shall shortly place him. You may cut him limb from limb,
and yet will he stand like a tower, until the last stone of the
foundation has been sapped. And, here, we have his neighbours, the,
Swede and the Russ, fit companions for managing the same piece; which,
I’ll answer, shall not be silent, while a man of them all is left to
apply a match, or handle a sponge. Yonder is a square-built athletic
mariner, from one of the Free Towns. He prefers our liberty to that of
his native city; and you shall find that the venerable Hanseatic
institutions shall give way sooner than he be known to quit the spot I
give him to defend. Here, you see a brace of Englishmen; and, though
they come from the island that I love so little, better men at need
will not be often found. Feed them, and flog them, and I pledge myself
to their swaggering, and their courage. D’ye see that
thoughtful-looking, bony miscreant, that has a look of godliness in the
midst of all his villany? That fellow fish’d for herring till he got a
taste of beef, when his stomach revolted at its ancient fare; and then
the ambition of becoming rich got uppermost. He is a Scot, from one of
the lochs of the North.”

“Will he fight?”

“For money—the honour of the Macs—and his religion. He is a reasoning
fellow, after all: and I like to have him on my own side in a quarrel.
Ah! yonder is the boy for a charge. I once told him to cut a rope in a
hurry, and he severed it above his head, instead of beneath his feet,
taking a flight from a lower yard into the sea, as a reward for the
exploit. But, then, he always extols his presence of mind in not
drowning! Now are his ideas in a hot ferment; and, if the truth could
be known, I would wager a handsome venture, that the sail in sight is,
by some mysterious process, magnified to six in his fertile fancy.”

“He must be thinking, then, of escape.”

“Far from it; he is rather plotting the means of surrounding them with
the ‘Dolphin.’ To your true Hibernian, escape is the last idea that
gives him an uneasy moment. You see the pensive-looking, sallow mortal,
at his elbow. That is a man who will fight with a sort of sentiment.
There is a touch of chivalry in him, which might be worked into heroism
if one had but the opportunity and the inclination. As it is, he will
not fail to show a spark of the true Castilian. His companion has come
from the Rock of Lisbon; I should trust him unwillingly, did I not know
that little opportunity of taking pay from the enemy is given here. Ah!
here is a lad for a dance of a Sunday. You see him, at this moment,
with foot and tongue going together. That is a creature of
contradictions. He wants for neither wit nor good-nature, but still he
might cut your throat on an occasion. There is a strange medley of
ferocity and bonhommie about the animal. I shall put him among the
boarders; for we shall not be at blows a minute before his impatience
will be for carrying every thing by a coup-de-main.”

“And who is the seaman at his elbow, that apparently is occupied in
divesting his person of some superfluous garments?” demanded Wilder,
irresistibly attracted, by the manner of the Rover, to pursue the
subject.

“An economical Dutchman. He calculates that it is just as wise to be
killed in an old jacket as in a new one; and has probably said as much
to his Gascon neighbour, who is, however, resolved to die decently, if
die he must. The former has happily commenced his preparations for the
combat in good season, or the enemy might defeat us before he would be
in readiness. Did it rest between these two worthies to decide this
quarrel, the mercurial Frenchman would defeat his neighbour of Holland,
before the latter believed the battle had commenced; but, should he let
the happy moment pass, rely on it, the Dutchman would give him trouble.
Forget you, Wilder, that the day has been when the countrymen of that
slow-moving and heavy-moulded fellow swept the narrow seas with a broom
at their mast-heads?”

The Rover smiled wildly as he spoke, and what he said he uttered with
bitter emphasis. To his companion however, there appeared no such
grounds of unnatural exultation, in recalling the success of a foreign
enemy, and he was content to assent to the truth of the historical fact
with a simple inclination of his head. As if he even found pain in this
confession, and would gladly be rid of the mortifying reflection
altogether, he rejoined, in some apparent haste,—

“You have overlooked the two tall seamen, who are making out the rig of
the stranger with so much gravity of observation.”

“Ay, those are men that came from a land in which we both feel some
interest. The sea is not more unstable than are those rogues in their
knavery. Their minds are but half made up to piracy.—’Tis a coarse
word, Mr Wilder, but I fear we earn it. But these rascals make a
reservation of grace in the midst of all their villainy.”

“They regard the stranger as if they saw reason to distrust the wisdom
of letting him approach so near.”
“Ah! they are renowned calculators. I fear they have detected the four
supernumerary guns you mentioned; for their vision seems supernatural
in affairs which touch their interests. But you see there is brawn and
sinew in the fellows; and, what is better, there are heads which teach
them to turn those advantages to account.”

“You think they fail in spirit?”

“Hum! It might be dangerous to try it on any point they deemed
material. They are no quarrellers about words, and seldom lose sight of
certain musty maxims, which they pretend come from a volume that I fear
you and I do not study too intently. It is not often that they strike a
blow for mere chivalry; and, were they so inclined, the rogues are too
much disposed to logic, to mistake, like your black, the ‘Dolphin’ for
a church. Still, if they see reason, in their puissant judgments, to
engage, mark me, the two guns they command will do better service than
all the rest of the battery. But, should they think otherwise, it would
occasion no surprise were I to receive a proposition to spare the
powder for some more profitable adventure. Honour, forsooth! the
miscreants are too well grounded in polemics to mistake the point of
honour in a pursuit like ours. But we chatter of trifles, when it is
time to think of serious things. Mr Wilder, we will now show our
canvas.”

The manner of the Rover changed as suddenly as his language. Losing the
air of sarcastic levity in which he had been indulging, in a mien
better suited to maintain the authority he wielded, he walked aside,
while his subordinate proceeded to issue the orders necessary to
enforce his commands. Nightingale sounded the usual summons, lifting
his hoarse voice in the cry of “All hands make sail, ahoy!”

Until now, the people of the “Dolphin” had made their observations on
the sail, that was growing so rapidly above the waters, according to
their several humours. Some had exulted in the prospect of a capture;
others, more practised in the ways of their Commander, had deemed the
probability of their coming in collision at all with the stranger a
point far from settled; while a few, more accustomed to reflection,
shook their heads as the stranger drew nigher, as if they believed he
was already within a distance that might be attended with too much
hazard. Still, as they were ignorant alike of those secret sources of
information which the chief had so frequently proved he possessed, to
an extent that often seemed miraculous, the whole were content
patiently to await his decision. But, when the cry above mentioned was
heard, it was answered by an activity so general and so cheerful, as to
prove it was entirely welcome. Order now followed order in quick
succession, from the mouth of Wilder, who, in virtue of his station,
was the proper executive officer for the moment.

As both lieutenant and crew appeared animated by the same spirit, it
was not long before the naked spars of the “Dolphin” were clothed in
vast volumes of spotless snow-white canvas. Sail had fallen after sail,
and yard after yard had been raised to the summit of its mast, until
the vessel bowed before the breeze, rolling to and fro, but still held
stationary by the position of her yards. When all was in readiness to
proceed, on whichever course might be deemed necessary, Wilder ascended
again to the poop, in order to announce the fact to his superior. He
found the Rover attentively considering the stranger, whose hull had by
this time risen out of the sea, and exhibited a long, dotted, yellow
line, which the eye of every man in the ship well knew to contain the
ports whence the guns that marked her particular force were made to
issue. Mrs Wyllys, accompanied by Gertrude, stood nigh, thoughtful, as
usual, but permitting no occurrence of the slightest moment to escape
her vigilance.

“We are ready to gather way on the ship,” said Wilder; “we wait merely
for the course.”

The Rover started, and drew closer to his subordinate before he gave an
answer. Then, looking him full and intently in the eye, he demanded,—

“You are certain that you know yon vessel, Mr Wilder?”

“Certain,” was the calm reply.

“It is a royal cruiser,” said the governess, with the swiftness of
thought.

“It is. I have already pronounced her to be so.”

“Mr Wilder,” resumed the Rover, “we will try her speed. Let the courses
fall, and fill your forward sails.”

The young mariner made an acknowledgment of obedience, and proceeded to
execute the wishes of his Commander. There was an eagerness, and
perhaps a trepidation, in the voice of Wilder, as he issued the
necessary orders, that was in remarkable contrast to the deep-toned
calmness which characterized the utterance of the Rover. The unusual
intonations did not entirely escape the ears of some of the elder
seamen; and looks of peculiar meaning were exchanged among them, as
they paused to catch his words. But obedience followed these unwonted
sounds, as it had been accustomed to succeed the more imposing
utterance of their own long-dreaded chief. The head-yards were swung,
the sails were distended with the breeze, and the mass, which had so
long been inert, began to divide the waters, as it heavily overcame the
state of rest in which it had reposed. The ship soon attained its
velocity; and then the contest between the two rival vessels became one
of deep and engrossing interest.

By this time the stranger was within a half league, directly under the
lee of the “Dolphin.” Closer and more accurate observation had
satisfied every understanding eye in the latter ship of the force and
character of their neighbour. The rays of a bright sun fell clear upon
her broadside, while the shadow of her sails was thrown far across the
waters, in a direction opposite to their own. There were moments when
the eye, aided by the glass, could penetrate through the open ports
into the interior of the hull, catching fleeting and delusory glimpses
of the movements within. A few human forms were distinctly visible in
different parts of her rigging; but, in all other respects, the repose
of high order and perfect discipline was discernible on all about her.

When the Rover heard the sounds of the parted waters, and saw the
little jets of spray that the bows of his own gallant ship cast before
her, he signed to his lieutenant to ascend to the place which he still
occupied on the poop. For many minutes, his eye was on the strange
sail, in close and intelligent contemplation of her powers.

“Mr Wilder,” he at length said, speaking like one whose doubts on some
perplexing point were finally removed, “I have seen that cruiser
before.”

“It is probable; she has roamed over most of the waters of the
Atlantic.”

“Ay, this is not the first of our meetings! a little paint has changed
her exterior, but I think I know the manner in which they have stepped
her masts.”

“They are thought to rake more than is usual.”

“They are thought to do it, with reason. Did you serve long aboard
her?”

“Years.”

“And you left her”——

“To join you.”

“Tell me, Wilder, did they treat you, too, as one of an inferior order?
Ha! was your merit called ‘provincial?’ Did they read America in all
you did?”

“I left her, Captain Heidegger.”

“Ay, they gave you reason. For once they have done me an act of
kindness. But you were in her during the equinox of March?”

Wilder made a slight bow of assent.

“I thought as much. And you fought a stranger in the gale? Winds,
ocean, and man were all at work together.”

“It is true. We knew you, and thought for a time that your hour had
come.”

“I like your frankness. We have sought each other’s lives like men, and
we shall prove the truer friends, now that amity is established between
us. I will not ask you further of that adventure, Wilder; for favour,
in my service, is not to be bought by treachery to that you have
quitted. It is sufficient that you now sail under my flag.”

“What is that flag?” demanded a mild but firm voice, at his elbow.

The Rover turned suddenly, and again met the riveted, calm, and
searching eye of the governess. The gleamings of some strangely
contradictory passions crossed his features, and then his whole
countenance changed to that look of bland courtesy which he most
affected when addressing his captives.

“Here speaks a female, to remind two mariners of their duty!” he
exclaimed. “We have forgotten the civility of showing the stranger our
bunting. Let it be set, Mr Wilder, that we may omit none of the
observances of nautical etiquette.”

“The ship in sight carries a naked gaft.”

“No matter; we shall be foremost in courtesy, Let the colours be
shown.”

Wilder opened the little locker which contained the flags most in use,
but hesitated which to select, out of a dozen that lay in large rolls
within the different compartments.
“I hardly know which of these ensigns it is your pleasure to show,” he
said, in a manner that appeared sufficiently like putting a question.

“Try him with the heavy-moulded Dutchman. The Commander of so noble a
ship should understand all Christian tongues.”

The lieutenant made a sign to the quarter-master on duty; and, in
another minute, the flag of the United Provinces was waving at the peak
of the “Dolphin.” The two officers narrowly watched its effect on the
stranger, who refused, however, to make any answering sign to the false
signal they had just exhibited.

“The stranger sees we have a hull that was never made for the shoals of
Holland. Perhaps he knows us?” said the Rover, glancing at the same
time a look of inquiry at his companion.

“I think not. Paint is too freely used in the ‘Dolphin,’ for even her
friends to be certain of her countenance.”

“She is a coquettish ship, we will allow,” returned the Rover, smiling.
“Try him with the Portuguese: Let us see if Brazil diamonds have favour
in his eyes.”

The colours already set were lowered, and, in their place, the emblem
of the house of Braganza was loosened to the breeze. Still the stranger
pursued his course in sullen inattention, eating closer and closer to
the wind, as it is termed in nautical language, in order to lessen the
distance between him and his chase as much as possible.

“An ally cannot move him,” said the Rover “Now let him see the taunting
drapeau blanc.”

Wilder complied in silence. The flag of Portugal was hauled to the
deck, and the white field of France was given to the air. The ensign
had hardly fluttered in its elevated position, before a broad glossy
blazonry, rose, like some enormous bird taking wing from the deck of
the stranger, and opened its folds in graceful waves at his gaft. The
same instant, a column of smoke issued from his bows, and had sailed
backward through his rigging, ere the report of the gun of defiance
found its way, against the fresh breeze of the trades, to the ears of
the “Dolphin’s” crew.

“So much for national amity!” dryly observed the Rover. “He is mute to
the Dutchman, and to the crown of Braganza; but the very bile is
stirred within him at the sight of a table-cloth! Let him contemplate
the colours he loves so little, Mr Wilder when we are tired of showing
them, our lockers may furnish another.”

It would seem, however, that the sight of the flag; which the Rover now
chose to bear, produced some such effect on his neighbour as the moleta
of the nimble banderillo is known to excite in the enraged bull. Sundry
smaller sails, which could do but little good, but which answered the
purpose of appearing to wish to quicken his speed, were instantly set
aboard the stranger; and not a brace, or a bow-line, was suffered to
escape without an additional pull. In short, he wore the air of the
courser who receives the useless blows of the jockey, when already at
the top of his speed, and when any further excitement is as fruitless
as his own additional exertions. Still there seemed but little need of
such supererogatory efforts. By this time, the two vessels were fairly
trying there powers of sailing, and with no visible advantage in favour
of either. Although the “Dolphin” was renowned for her speed, the
stranger manifested no inferiority that the keenest scrutiny might
detect. The ship of the freebooter was already bending to the breeze,
and the jets of spray before her were cast still higher and further in
advance; but each impulse of the wind was equally felt by the stranger,
and her movement over the heaving waters seemed to be as rapid and as
graceful as that of her rival.

“Yon ship parts the water as a swallow cuts the air,” observed the
chief of the freebooters to the youth, who still kept at his elbow,
endeavouring to conceal an uneasiness which was increasing at each
instant. “Has she a name for speed?”

“The curlew is scarcely faster. Are we not already nigh enough, for men
who cruise with commissions no better than our own pleasure?”

The Rover glanced a look of impatient suspicion at the countenance of
his companion; but its expression changed to a smile of haughty
audacity, as he answered,—

“Let him equal the eagle in his highest and swiftest flight, he shall
find us no laggards on the wing! Why this reluctance to be within a
mile of a vessel of the Crown?”

“Because I know her force, and the hopeless character of a contest with
an enemy so superior,” returned Wilder, firmly. “Captain Heidegger, you
cannot fight yon ship with success; and, unless instant use be made of
the distance which still exists between us, you cannot escape her.
Indeed, I know not but it is already too late to attempt the latter.”

“Such, sir, is the opinion of one who overrates the powers of his
enemy, because use, and much talking, have taught him to reverence it
as something more than human. Mr Wilder, none are so daring or so
modest, as those who have long been accustomed to place their
dependence on their own exertions. I have been nigher to a flag even,
and yet you see I continue to keep on this mortal coil.”

“Hark! ’Tis a drum. The stranger is going to his guns.”

The Rover listened a moment, and was able to catch the well-known beat
which calls the people of a vessel of war to quarters. First casting a
glance upward at his sails, and then throwing a general and critical
look on all and every thing which came within the influence of his
command, he calmly answered,—

“We will imitate his example, Mr Wilder. Let the order be given.”

Until now, the crew of the “Dolphin” had either been occupied in such
necessary duties as had been assigned them, or were engaged in gazing
with curious eyes at the ship which so eagerly sought to draw as near
as possible to their own dangerous vessel. The low but continued hum of
voices, sounds such alone as discipline permitted, had afforded the
only evidence of the interest they took in the scene; but, the instant
the first tap on the drum was heard, each groupe severed, and every man
repaired, with bustling activity, to his well-known station. The stir
among the crew was but of a moment’s continuance, and it was succeeded
by the breathing stillness which has already been noticed in our pages
on a similar occasion. The officers, however, were seen making hasty,
but strict, inquiries into the conditions of their several commands;
while the munitions of war, that were quickly drawn from their places
of deposit, announced a preparation more serious than ordinary. The
Rover himself had disappeared; but it was not long before he was again
seen at his elevated look-out accoutred for the conflict that appeared
to approach, employed, as ever, in studying the properties, the force,
and the evolutions of his advancing antagonist. Those who knew him
best, however, said that the question of combat was not yet decided in
his mind; and hundreds of eager glances were thrown in the direction of
his contracting eye, as if to penetrate the mystery in which he still
chose to conceal his purpose. He had thrown aside the sea-cap, and
stood with the fair hair blowing about a brow that seemed formed to
give birth to thoughts far nobler than those which apparently had
occupied his life, while a species of leathern helmet lay at his feet,
the garniture of which was of a nature to lend an unnatural fierceness
to the countenance of its wearer. Whenever this boarding-cap was worn,
all in the ship were given to understand that the moment of serious
strife was at hand; but, as yet, that never-failing evidence of the
hostile intention of their leader was unnoticed.

In the mean time, each officer had examined into, and reported, the
state of his division; and then, by a sort of implied permission on the
part of their superiors, the death-like calm, which had hitherto
reigned among the people, was allowed to be broken by suppressed but
earnest discourse; the calculating chief permitting this departure from
the usual rules of more regular cruisers, in order to come at the
temper of the crew, on which so much of the success of his desperate
enterprises so frequently depended.




Chapter XXVII.

“For he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman.”

_King Henry IV_


The moment was now one of high and earnest excitement. Each individual,
who was charged with a portion of the subordinate authority of the
ship, had examined into the state of his command, with that engrossing
care which always deepens as responsibility draws nigher to the proofs
of its being worthily bestowed. The voice of the harsh master had
ceased to inquire into the state of those several ropes and chains that
were deemed vital to the safety of the vessel; each chief of a battery
had assured and re-assured himself that his artillery was ready for
instant, and the most effective, service; extra ammunition had already
issued from its dark and secret repository; and even the hum of
dialogue had ceased, in the more engrossing and all-absorbing interest
of the scene. Still the quick and ever-changing glance of the Rover
could detect no reason to distrust the firmness of his people. They
were grave, as are ever the bravest and steadiest in the hour of trial;
but their gravity was mingled with no signs of concern. It seemed
rather like the effect of desperate and concentrated resolution, such
as braces the human mind to efforts which exceed the ordinary daring of
martial enterprise. To this cheering exhibition of the humour of his
crew the wary and sagacious leader saw but three exceptions; they were
found in the persons of his lieutenant and his two remarkable
associates.

It has been seen that the bearing of Wilder was not altogether such as
became one of his rank in a moment of great trial. The keen, jealous
glances of the Rover had studied and re-studied his manner, without
arriving at any satisfactory conclusion as to its real cause. The
colour was as fresh on the cheeks of the youth, and his limbs were as
firm as in the hours of entire security; but the unsettled wandering of
his eye, and an air of doubt and indecision which pervaded a mien that
ought to display qualities so opposite, gave his Commander cause for
deep reflection. As if to find an explanation of the enigma in the
deportment of the associates of Wilder, his look sought the persons of
Fid and the negro. They were both stationed at the piece nearest to the
place he himself occupied, the former filling the station of captain of
the gun.

The ribs of the ship itself were not firmer in their places than was
the attitude of the topman, as he occasionally squinted along the
massive iron tube over which he was placed in command; nor was that
familiar and paternal care, which distinguishes the seaman’s interest
in his particular trust, wanting in his manner. Still, an air of broad
and inexplicable surprise had possession of his rugged lineaments; and
ever, as his look wandered from the countenance of Wilder to their
adversary, it was not difficult to discover that he marvelled to find
the two in opposition. He neither commented on, nor complained,
however, of an occurrence he evidently found so extraordinary, but
appeared perfectly disposed to pursue the spirit of that well-known
maxim of the mariner which teaches the obedient tar “to obey orders,
though he break owners.” Every portion of the athletic form of the
negro was motionless, except his eyes. These large, jet-black orbs,
however rolled incessantly, like the more dogmatic organs of the
topman, from Wilder to the strange sail, seeming to drink in fresh
draughts of astonishment at each new look.

Struck by these evident manifestations of some extraordinary and yet
common sentiment between the two, the Rover profited by his own
position, and the distance of the lieutenant, to address them. Leaning
over the slight rail that separated the break of the poop from the
quarter-deck, he said, in that familiar manner which the Commander is
most wont to use to his inferiors when their services are becoming of
the greatest importance,—

“I hope, master Fid, they have put you at a gun that knows how to
speak.”

“There is not a smoother bore, nor a wider mouth, in the ship, your
Honour, than these of ‘Blazing Billy,’” returned the topman, giving the
subject of his commendations an affectionate slap. “All I ask is a
clean spunge and a tight wad. Guinea score a foul anchor, in your own
fashion, on a half dozen of the shot; and, after the matter is all
over, they who live through it may go aboard the enemy, and see in what
manner Richard Fid has planted his seed.”

“You are not new in action, master Fid?”

“Lord bless your Honour! gunpowder is no more than dry tobacco in my
nostrils! tho’f I will say”

“You were going to add”——

“That sometimes I find myself shifted over, in these here affairs,”
returned the topman, glancing his eye first at the flag of France, and
then at the distant emblem of England, “like a jib-boom rigged, abaft,
for a jury to the spanker. I suppose master Harry has it all in his
pocket, in black and white; but this much I will say, that, if I must
throw stones, I should rather see them break a neighbour’s crockery
than that of my own mother.—I say, Guinea, score a couple more of the
shot; since, if the play is to be acted, I’ve a mind the ‘Blazing
Billy’ should do something creditable for the honour of her good name.”

The Rover drew back, thoughtful and silent. He then caught a look from
Wilder, whom he again beckoned to approach.

“Mr Wilder,” he said, in a tone of kindness, “I comprehend your
feelings. All have not offended alike in yonder vessel, and you would
rather your service against that haughty flag should commence with some
other ship. There is little else but empty honour to be gained in the
conflict—in tenderness to your feelings, I will avoid it.”

“It is too late,” said Wilder, with a melancholy shake of the head.

“You shall see your error. The experiment may cost us a broadside, but
it shall succeed. Go, descend with our guests to a place of safety;
and, by the time you return, the scene shall have undergone a change.”

Wilder eagerly disappeared in the cabin, whither Mrs Wyllys had already
withdrawn; and, after communicating the intentions of his Commander to
avoid an action, he conducted them into the depths of the vessel, in
order that no casualty might arrive to imbitter his recollections of
the hour. This grateful duty promptly and solicitously performed, our
adventurer again sought the deck, with the velocity of thought.

Notwithstanding his absence had seemed but of a moment, the scene had
indeed changed in all its hostile images. In place of the flag of
France, he found the ensign of England floating at the peak of the
“Dolphin,” and a quick and intelligible exchange of lesser signals in
active operation between the two vessels. Of all that cloud of canvas
which had so lately borne down the vessel of the Rover, her top sails
alone remained distended to the yards; the remainder was hanging in
festoons, and fluttering loosely before a favourable breeze. The ship
itself was running directly for the stranger, who, in turn, was
sullenly securing his lofty sails, like one who was disappointed in a
high-prized and expected object.

“Now is yon fellow sorry to believe him a friend whom he had lately
supposed an enemy,” said the Rover, directing the attention of his
lieutenant to the confiding manner with which their neighbour suffered
himself to be deceived by his surreptitiously obtained signals. “It is
a tempting offer; but I pass it, Wilder for your sake.”

The gaze of the lieutenant seemed bewildered, but he made no reply.
Indeed, but little time was given for deliberation or discourse. The
“Dolphin” rolled swiftly along her path, and each moment dissipated the
mist in which distance had enveloped the lesser objects on board the
stranger. Guns, blocks, ropes, bolts, men, and even features, became
plainly visible, in rapid succession, as the water that divided them
was parted by the bows of the lawless ship. In a few short minutes, the
stranger, having secured most of his lighter canvas, came sweeping up
to the wind; and then, as his after-sails, squared for the purpose,
took the breeze on their outer surface, the mass of his hull became
stationary.

The people of the “Dolphin” had so far imitated the confiding credulity
of the deceived cruiser of the Crown, as to furl all their loftiest
duck, each man employed in the service trusting implicitly to the
discretion and daring of the singular being whose pleasure it was to
bring their ship into so hazardous a proximity to a powerful
enemy—qualities that had been known to avail them in circumstances of
even greater delicacy than those in which they were now placed. With
this air of audacious confidence, the dreaded Rover came gliding down
upon her unsuspecting neighbour, until within a few hundred feet of her
weather-beam, when she too, with a graceful curve in her course, bore
up against the breeze, and came to a state of rest. But Wilder, who
regarded all the movements of his superior in silent amazement, was not
slow in observing that the head of the “Dolphin” was laid a different
way from that of the other, and that her progress had been arrested by
the counteracting position of her head-yards; a circumstance that
afforded the advantage of a quicker command of the ship, should need
require a sudden recourse to the guns.

The “Dolphin” was still drifting slowly under the last influence of her
recent motion, when the customary hoarse and nearly unintelligible
summons came over the water, demanding her appellation and character.
The Rover applied his trumpet to his lips, with a meaning glance that
was directed towards his lieutenant, and returned the name of a ship,
in the service of the King, that was known to be of the size and force
of his own vessel.

“Ay, ay,” returned a voice from out of the other ship, “’twas so I made
out your signals.”

The hail was then reciprocated, and the name of the royal cruiser given
in return, followed by an invitation from her Commander, to his brother
in authority to visit his superior.

Thus far, no more had occurred than was usual between seamen in the
same service; but the affair was rapidly arriving at a point that most
men would have found too embarrassing for further deception. Still the
observant eye of Wilder detected no hesitation or doubt in the manner
of his chief. The beat of the drum was heard from the cruiser,
announcing the “retreat from quarters;” and, with perfect composure, he
directed the same signal to be given for his own people to retire from
their guns. In short, five minutes established every appearance of
entire confidence and amity between two vessels which would have soon
been at deadly strife, had the true character of one been known to the
other. In this state of the doubtful game he played, and with the
invitation still ringing in the ears of Wilder, the Rover motioned his
lieutenant to his side.

“You hear that I am desired to visit my senior in the service of his
Majesty,” he said, with a smile of irony playing about his scornful
lip. “Is it your pleasure to be of the party?”

The start with which Wilder received this hardy proposal was far too
natural to proceed from any counterfeited emotion.

“You are not so mad as to run the risk!” he exclaimed when words were
at command.

“If you fear for yourself, I can go alone.”

“Fear!” echoed the youth, a bright flush giving an additional glow to
the flashing of his kindling eye. “It is not fear, Captain Heidegger,
but prudence, that tells me to keep concealed. My presence would betray
the character of this ship. You forget that I am known to all in yonder
cruiser.”

“I had indeed forgotten that portion of the plot. Then remain, while I
go to play upon the credulity of his Majesty’s Captain.”

Without waiting for an answer, the Rover led the way below, signing for
his companion to follow. A few moments sufficed to arrange the fair
golden locks that imparted such a look of youth and vivacity to the
countenance of the former. The undress, fanciful frock he wore in
common was exchanged for the attire of one of his assumed rank and
service, which had been made to fit his person with the nicest care,
and with perhaps a coxcomical attention to the proportions of his
really fine person; and in all other things was he speedily equipped
for the disguise he chose to affect. No sooner were these alterations
in his appearance completed, (and they were effected with a brevity and
readiness that manifested much practice in similar artifices,) than he
disposed himself to proceed on the intended experiment.

“Truer and quicker eyes have been deceived,” he coolly observed,
turning his glance from a mirror to the countenance of his lieutenant,
as he spoke, “than those which embellish the countenance of Captain
Bignall.”

“You know him, then?”

“Mr Wilder, my business imposes the necessity of knowing much that
other men overlook. Now is this adventure, which, by your features, I
perceive you deem so forlorn in its hopes of success, one of easy
achievement. I am convinced that not an officer or man on board the
‘Dart’ has ever seen the ship whose name I have chosen to usurp. She is
too fresh from the stocks to incur that risk. Then is there little
probability that I, in my other self, shall be compelled to acknowledge
acquaintance with any of her officers; for you well know that years
have passed since your late ship has been in Europe; and, by running
your eye over these books, you will perceive I am that favoured mortal,
the son of a Lord, and have not only grown into command, but into
manhood, since her departure from home.”

“These are certainly favouring circumstances, and such as I had not the
sagacity to detect.—But why incur the risk at all?”

“Why! Perhaps there is a deep-laid scheme to learn if the prize would
repay the loss of her capture; perhaps——it is my humour. There is
fearful excitement in the adventure.”

“And there is fearful danger.”

“I never count the price of these enjoyments.—Wilder,” he added,
turning to him with a look of frank and courteous confidence, “I place
life and honour in your keeping; for to me it would be dishonour to
desert the interests of my crew.”

“The trust shall be respected,” repeated our adventurer in a tone so
deep and choaked as to be nearly unintelligible.

Regarding the still ingenuous countenance of his companion intently for
an instant, the Rover smiled as if he approved of the pledge, waved his
hand in adieu, and, turning, was about to leave the cabin but a third
form, at that moment, caught his wandering glance. Laying a hand
lightly on the shoulder of the boy, whose form was placed somewhat
obtrusively in his way, he demanded, a little sternly.

“Roderick, what means this preparation?”

“To follow my master to the boat.”

“Boy, thy service is not needed.”

“It is rarely wanted of late.”

“Why should I add unnecessarily to the risk of lives, where no good can
attend the hazard?”

“In risking your own, you risk all to me,” was the answer, given in a
tone so resigned, and yet so faltering that the tremulous and nearly
smothered sounds caught no ears but those for whom they were intended.

The Rover for a time replied not. His hand still kept its place on the
shoulder of the boy, whose working features his riveted eye read, as
the organ is sometimes wont to endeavour to penetrate the mystery of
the human heart.

“Roderick,” he at length said, in a milder and a a kinder voice, “your
lot shall be mine; we go together.”

Then, dashing his hand hastily across his brow the wayward chief
ascended the ladder, attended by the lad, and followed by the
individual in whose faith he reposed so great a trust. The step with
which the Rover trod his deck was firm, and the bearing of his form as
steady as though he felt no hazard in his undertaking. His look passed,
with a seaman’s care, from sail to sail; and not a brace, yard, or
bow-line escaped the quick understanding glances he cast about him,
before he proceeded to the side, in order to enter a boat which he had
already ordered to be in waiting. A glimmering of distrust and
hesitation was now, for the first time, discoverable through the
haughty and bold decision of his features. For a moment his foot
lingered on the ladder. “Davis,” he said sternly to the individual
whom, by his own experience he knew to be so long practised in
treachery “leave the boat. Send me the gruff captain of the forecastle
in his place. So bold a talker, in common, should know how to be silent
at need.”

The exchange was instantly made; for no one, there, was ever known to
dispute a mandate that was uttered with the air of authority he then
wore. A deeply intent attitude of thought succeeded, and then every
shadow of care vanished from that brow, on which a look of high and
generous confidence was seated, as he added,—

“Wilder, adieu! I leave you Captain of my people and master of my fate:
Certain I am that both trusts are reposed in worthy hands.”

Without waiting for reply, as if he scorned the vain ceremony of idle
assurances, he descended swiftly to the boat, which at the next instant
was pulling boldly towards the King’s cruiser. The brief interval which
succeeded, between the departure of the adventurers and their arrival
at the hostile ship, was one of intense and absorbing suspense on the
part of all whom they had left behind. The individual most interested
in the event, however, betrayed neither in eye nor movement any of the
anxiety which so intently beset the minds of his followers. He mounted
the side of his enemy amid the honours due to his imaginary rank, with
a self-possession and ease that might readily have been mistaken, by
those who believe these fancied qualities have a real existence, for
the grace and dignity of lofty recollections and high birth. His
reception, by the honest veteran whose long and hard services had
received but a meager reward in the vessel he commanded, was frank,
manly, and seaman-like. No sooner had the usual greetings passed, than
the latter conducted his guest into his own apartments.

“Find such a birth, Captain Howard, as suits your inclination,” said
the unceremonious old seaman, seating himself as frankly as he invited
his companion to imitate his example. “A gentleman of your
extraordinary merit must be reluctant to lose time in useless words,
though you are so young—young for the pretty command it is your good
fortune to enjoy!”

“On the contrary, I do assure you I begin to feel myself quite an
antediluvian,” returned the Rover coolly placing himself at the
opposite side of the table, where he might, from time to time, look his
half-disgusted companion full in the eye: “Would you imagine it, sir? I
shall have reached the age of three-and-twenty, if I live through the
day.”

“I had given you a few more years, young gentleman; but London can
ripen the human face as speedily as the Equator.”

“You never said truer words, sir. Of all cruising grounds, Heaven
defend me from that of St. James’s! I do assure you, Bignall, the
service is quite sufficient to wear out the strongest constitution.
There were moments when I really thought I should have died that
humble, disagreeable mortal—a lieutenant!”

“Your disease would then have been a galloping consumption!” muttered
the indignant old seaman. “They have sent you out in a pretty boat at
last, Captain Howard.”

“She’s bearable, Bignall, but frightfully small. I told my father,
that, if the First Lord didn’t speedily regenerate the service, by
building more comfortable vessels, the navy would get altogether into
vulgar hands. Don’t you find the motion excessively annoying in these
single-deck’d ships, Bignall?”

“When a man has been tossing up and down for five-and-forty years,
Captain Howard,” returned his host, stroking his gray locks, for want
of some other manner of suppressing his ire, “he gets to be indifferent
whether his ship pitches a foot more or a foot less.”

“Ah! that, I dare say, is what one calls philosophical equanimity,
though little to my humour. But, after this cruise, I am to be posted;
and then I shall make interest for a guard-ship in the Thames; every
thing goes by interest now-a-days, you know, Big-nail.”

The honest old tar swallowed his displeasure as well as he could; and,
as the most effectual means of keeping himself in a condition to do
credit to his own hospitality, he hastened to change the subject.

“I hope, among other new fashions, Captain Howard,” he said, “the flag
of Old England continues to fly over the Admiralty. You wore the
colours of Louis so long this morning, that another half hour might
have brought us to loggerheads.”

“Oh! that was an excellent military ruse! I shall certainly write the
particulars of that deception home.”

“Do so; do so, sir; you may get knighthood for the exploit.”

“Horrible, Bignall! my Lady mother would faint at the suggestion.
Nothing so low has been in the family, I do assure you, since the time
when chivalry was genteel.”

“Well, well, Captain Howard, it was happy for us both that you got rid
of your Gallic humour so soon; for a little more time would have drawn
a broadside from me. By heavens, sir, the guns of this ship would have
gone off of themselves, in another five minutes!”

“It is quite happy as it is.—What do you find to amuse you (yawning) in
this dull quarter of the world, Bignall?”

“Why, sir, what between his Majesty’s enemies, the care of my ship, and
the company of my officers, I find few heavy moments.”

“Ah! your officers: True, you _must_ have officers on board; though, I
suppose, they are a little oldish to be agreeable to _you_. Will you
favour me with a sight of the list?”

The Commander of the ‘Dart’ did as he was requested, putting the
quarter-bill of his ship into the hands of his unknown enemy, with an
eye that was far too honest to condescend to bestow even a look on a
being so much despised.

“What a list of thorough mouthers! All Yarmouth, and Plymouth, and
Portsmouth, and Exmouth names, I do affirm. Here are Smiths enough to
do the iron-work of the whole ship. Ha! here is a fellow that might do
good service in a deluge. Who may be this Henry Ark, that I find rated
as your first lieutenant?”

“A youth who wants but a few drops of your blood, Captain Howard, to be
one day at the head of his Majesty’s fleet.”

“If he be then so extraordinary for his merit, Captain Bignall, may I
presume on your politeness to ask him to favour us with his society. I
always give my lieutenant half an hour of a morning—if he be genteel.”

“Poor boy! God knows where he is to be found at this moment. The noble
fellow has embarked, of his own accord, on a most dangerous service,
and I am as ignorant as yourself of his success. Remonstrance and even
entreaties, were of no avail. The Admiral had great need of a suitable
agent, and the good of the nation demanded the risk; then, you know,
men of humble birth must earn their preferment in cruising elsewhere
than at St. James’s; for the brave lad is indebted to a wreck, in which
he was found an infant, for the very name you find so singular.”

“He is, however, still borne upon your books as first lieutenant?”

“And I hope ever will be, until he shall get the ship he so well
merits.—Good Heaven! are you ill Captain Howard? Boy, a tumbler of grog
here.”

“I thank you, sir,” returned the Rover, smiling calmly, and rejecting
the offered beverage, as the blood returned into his features, with a
violence that threatened to break through the ordinary boundaries of
its currents. “It is no more than an ailing I inherit from my mother.
We call it, in our family, the ‘de Vere ivory;’ for no other reason,
that I could ever learn, than that one of my female ancestors was
particularly startled, in a delicate situation, you know, by an
elephant’s tooth. I am told it has rather an amiable look, while it
lasts.”

“It has the look of a man who is fitter for his mother’s nursery than a
gale of wind. But I am glad it is so soon over.”

“No one wears the same face long now-a-days, Bignall.—And so this Mr
Ark is not any body, after all.

“I know not what you call ‘any body,’ sir; but, if sterling courage,
great professional merit, and stern loyalty, count for any thing on
your late cruising grounds, Captain Howard, Henry Ark will soon be in
command of a frigate.”

“Perhaps, if one only knew exactly on what to found his claims,”
continued the Rover, with a smile so kind, and a voice so insinuating,
that they half counteracted the effect of his assumed manner, “a word
might be dropped, in a letter home, that should do the youth no harm.”

“I would to Heaven I dare but reveal the nature of the service he is
on!” eagerly returned the warm-hearted old seaman, who was as quick to
forget, as he was sudden to feel, disgust. “You may, however, safely
say, from his general character, that it is honourable, hazardous, and
has the entire good of his Majesty’s subjects in view. Indeed, an hour
has scarcely gone by since I thought that, it was completely
successful.—Do you often set your lofty sails, Captain Howard, while
the heavier canvas is rolled upon the yards? To me, a ship clothed in
that style looks something like a man with his coat on, before he has
cased his legs in the lower garment.”

“You allude to the accident of my maintop-gallant-sail getting loose
when you first made me?”

“I mean no other. We had caught a glimpse of your spars with the glass;
but had lost you altogether, when the flying duck met the eye of a
look-out. To say the least, it, was remarkable, and it might have
proved an awkward circumstance.”

“Ah! I often do things in that way, in order to be odd. It is a sign of
cleverness to be odd, you know.—But I, too, am sent into these seas on
a special errand.”

“Such as what?” bluntly demanded his companion with an uneasiness about
his frowning eye that he was far too simple-minded to conceal.

“To look for a ship that will certainly give me a famous lift, should I
have the good luck to fall in with her. For some time, I took you for
the very gentle man I was in search of; and I do assure you, if your
signals had not been so very unexceptionable, something serious might
have happened between us.”

“And pray, sir, for whom did you take me?”

“For no other than that notorious knave the Red Rover.”

“The devil you did! And do yon suppose, Captain Howard, there is a
pirate afloat who carries such hamper above his head as is to be found
aboard the Dart?’ Such a set to her sails—such a step to her masts—and
such a trim to her hull? I hope, for the honour of your vessel, sir,
that the mistake went no further than the Captain?”

“Until we got within leading distance of the signals, at least a moiety
of the better opinions in my ship was dead against you, Bignall, I give
you my declaration. You’ve really been so long from home, that the
‘Dart’ is getting quite a roving look. You may not be sensible of it,
but I assure you of the fact merely as a friend.”

“And, perhaps, since you did me the honour to mistake my vessel for a
freebooter,” returned the old tar, smothering his ire in a look of
facetious irony, which changed the expression of his mouth to a grim
grin, “you might have conceited this honest gentleman here to be no
other than Beelzebub.”

As he spoke, the Commander of the ship, which had borne so odious an
imputation, directed the eyes of his companion to the form of a third
individual, who had entered the cabin with the freedom of a privileged
person, but with a tread so light as to be inaudible. As this
unexpected form met the quick, impatient glance of the pretended
officer of the Crown, he arose involuntarily, and, for half a minute,
that admirable command of muscle and nerve, which had served him so
well in maintaining his masquerade, appeared entirely to desert him.
The loss of self-possession, however, was but for a time so short as to
attract no notice; and he coolly returned the salutations of an aged
man, of a meek and subdued look, with that air of blandness and
courtesy which he so well knew how to assume.

“This gentleman is your chaplain, sir, I presume, by his clerical
attire,” he said, after he had exchanged bows with the stranger.
“He is, sir—a worthy and honest man, whom I am not ashamed to call my
friend. After a separation of thirty years, the Admiral has been good
enough to lend him to me for the cruise; and, though my ship is none of
the largest, I believe he finds himself as comfortable in her as he
would aboard the flag.—This gentleman, Doctor, is the _honourable_
Captain Howard, of his Majesty’s ship ‘Antelope.’ I need not expatiate
on his remarkable merit, since the command he bears, at his years, is a
sufficient testimony on that important particular.”

There was a look of bewildered surprise in the gaze of the divine, when
his glance first fell upon the features of the pretended scion of
nobility; but it was far less striking than had been that of the
subject of his gaze, and of much shorter continuance. He again bowed
meekly, and with that deep reverence which long use begets, even in the
best-intentioned minds, when brought in contact with the fancied
superiority of hereditary rank; but he did not appear to consider the
occasion one that required he should say more than the customary words
of salutation. The Rover turned calmly to his veteran companion, and
continued the discourse.

“Captain Bignall,” he said, again wearing that grace of manner which
became him so well, “it is my duty to follow your motions in this
interview. I will now return to my ship; and if, as I begin to suspect
we are in these seas on a similar errand, we can concert at our leisure
a system of co-operation, which, properly matured by your experience,
may serve to bring about the common end we have in view.”

Greatly mollified by this concession to his years and to his rank, the
Commander of the “Dart” pressed his hospitalities warmly on his guest,
winding up his civilities by an invitation to join in a marine feast at
an hour somewhat later in the day. All the former offers were politely
declined, while the latter was accepted; the invited making the
invitation itself an excuse that he should return to his own vessel in
order that he might select such of his officers as he should deem most
worthy of participating in the dainties of the promised banquet. The
veteran and really meritorious Bignall, notwithstanding the ordinary
sturdy blustering of his character, had served too long in indigence
and comparative obscurity not to feel some of the longings of human
nature for his hard-earned and protracted preferment. He consequently
kept, in the midst of all his native and manly honesty, a saving-eye on
the means of accomplishing this material object. It is to occasion no
surprise, therefore, that his parting from the supposed son of a
powerful champion at Court was more amicable than had been the meeting.
The Rover was bowed, from the cabin to the deck, with at least an
appearance of returning good-will. On reaching the latter, a hurried,
suspicious, and perhaps an uneasy glance was thrown from his restless
eyes on all those faces that were grouped around the gangway, by which
he was about to leave the ship; but their expression instantly became
calm again, and a little supercilious withal, in order to do no
discredit to the part in the comedy which it was his present humour to
enact. Then, shaking the worthy and thoroughly-deceived old seaman
heartily by the hand, he touched his hat, with an air half-haughty,
half-condescending to his inferiors. He was in the act of descending
into the boat, when the chaplain was seen to whisper something, with
great earnestness, in the ear of his Captain. The Commander hastened to
recall his departing guest, desiring him, with startling gravity to
lend him his private attention for another moment Suffering himself to
be led apart by the two the Rover stood awaiting their pleasure, with a
coolness of demeanour that, under the peculiar circumstances of his
case, did signal credit to his nerves.

“Captain Howard,” resumed the warm-hearted Bignall, “have you a
gentleman of the cloth in your vessel?”

“Two, sir,” was the ready answer.

“Two! It is rare to find a supernumerary priest in a man of war! But, I
suppose, Court influence could give the fellow a bishop,” muttered the
other. “You are fortunate in this particular, young gentle man, since I
am indebted to inclination, rather than to custom, for the society of
my worthy friend here he has, however, made a point that I should
include the reverend gentleman—I should say gentle_men_—in the
invitation.”

“You shall have all the divinity of _my_ ship, Big nail, on my faith.”

“I believe I was particular in naming your first lieutenant.”

“Oh! dead or alive, he shall surely be of your party,” returned the
Rover, with a suddenness and vehemence of utterance that occasioned
both his auditors to start with surprise. “You may not find him an ark
to rest your weary foot on; but, such as he is, he is entirely at your
service. And now, once more, I salute you.”

Bowing again, he proceeded, with his former deliberate air, over the
gangway, keeping his eye riveted on the lofty gear of the “Dart,” as he
descended her side, with much that sort of expression with which a
petit-maître is apt to regard the fashion of the garments of one newly
arrived from the provinces. His superior repeated his invitation with
warmth, and waved his hand in a frank but temporary adieu; thus
unconsciously suffering the man to escape him whose capture would have
purchased the long postponed and still distant advantages for whose
possession he secretly pined, with all the withering longings his hope
cruelly deferred.




Chapter XXVIII.

“Let them accuse me by invention; I will answer in mine honour.”

_Coriolanus._


“Yes!” muttered the Rover, with bitter irony, as his boat rowed under
the stern of the cruiser of the Crown; “yes! I, and my officers, will
taste of your banquet! But the viands shall be such as these hirelings
of the King shall little relish!—Pull with a will, my men, pull; in an
hour, you shall rummage the store-rooms of that fool, for your reward!”

The greedy freebooters who manned the oars could scarcely restrain
their shouts, in order to maintain that air of moderation which policy
still imposed but they gave vent to their excitement, in redoubled
efforts in propelling the pinnace. In another minute the adventurers
were all in safety again under the sheltering guns of the “Dolphin.”

His people gathered, from the haughty gleamings that were flashing from
the eyes of the Rover, as his foot once more touched the deck of his
own ship, that the period of some momentous action was at hand. For an
instant, he lingered on the quarter-deck surveying, with a sort of
stern joy, the sturdy materials of his lawless command; and then,
without speaking, he abruptly entered his proper cabin either forgetful
that he had conceded its use to others or, in the present excited state
of his mind, utterly indifferent to the change. A sudden and tremendous
blow on the gong announced to the alarmed females, who had ventured
from their secret place, under the present amicable appearances between
the two ships, not only his presence, but his humour.

“Let the first lieutenant be told I await him,” was the stern order
that followed the appearance of the attendant he had summoned.

During the short period which elapsed before his mandate could be
obeyed, the Rover seemed struggling with an emotion that choaked him.
But when the door of the cabin was opened, and Wilder stood before him,
the most suspicious and closest observer might have sought in vain any
evidence of the fierce passion which in reality agitated the inward
man. With the recovery of his self-command, returned a recollection of
the manner of his intrusion into a place which he had himself ordained
should be privileged. It was then that he first sought the shrinking
forms of the females, and hastened to relieve the terror that was too
plainly to be seen in their countenances, by words of apology and
explanation.

“In the hurry of an interview with a friend,” he said, “I may have
forgotten that I am host to even such guests as it is my happiness to
entertain, though it be done so very indifferently.”

“Spare your civilities, sir,” said Mrs Wyllys, with dignity: “In order
to make us less sensible of any intrusion, be pleased to act the master
here.”

The Rover first saw the ladies seated; and then, like one who appeared
to think the occasion might excuse any little departure from customary
forms, he signed, with a smile of high courtesy, to his lieutenant to
imitate their example.

“His Majesty’s artisans have sent worse ships than the ‘Dart’ upon the
ocean, Wilder,” he commenced, with a significant look, as if he
intended that the other should supply all the meaning that his words
did not express; “but his ministers might have selected a more
observant individual for the command.”

“Captain Bignall has the reputation of a brave and an honest man.”

“Ay! He should deserve it; for, strip him of these qualities, and
little would remain. He gives me to understand that he is especially
sent into this latitude in quest of a ship that we have all heard of,
either in good or in evil report; I speak of the Red Rover!’”

The involuntary start of Mrs Wyllys, and the sudden manner in which
Gertrude grasped the arm of her governess, were certainly seen by the
last speaker but in no degree did his manner betray the consciousness
of such an observation. His self-possession was admirably emulated by
his male companion, who answered, with a composure that no jealousy
could have seen was assumed,—

“His cruise will be hazardous, not to say without success.”

“It may prove both. And yet he has lofty expectations of the results.”

“He probably labours under the common error as to the character of the
man he seeks.”

“In what does he mistake?”

“In supposing that he will encounter an ordinary freebooter—one coarse,
rapacious, ignorant, and inexorable like others of”——

“Of what, sir?”

“I would have said, of his class; but a mariner like him we speak of
forms the head of his own order.”

“We will call him, then, by his popular name, Mr Wilder—a rover. But,
answer me, is it not remarkable that so aged and experienced a seaman
should come to this little frequented sea in quest of a ship whose
pursuits should call her into more bustling scenes?”

“He may have traced her through the narrow passages of the islands, and
followed on the course she has last been seen steering.”

“He may indeed,” returned the Rover, musing intently “Your thorough
mariner knows how to calculate the chances of winds and currents, as
the bird finds its way in air. Still a description of the ship should
be needed for a clue.”

The eyes of Wilder, not withstanding every effort to the contrary, sunk
before the piercing gaze they encountered, as he answered,—

“Perhaps he is not without that knowledge, too.”

“Perhaps not. Indeed, he gave me reason to believe he has an agent in
the secrets of his enemy. Nay, he expressly avowed the same, and
acknowledged that his prospects of success depended on the skill and
information of that individual, who no doubt has his private means of
communicating what he learns of the movements of those with whom he
serves.”

“Did he name him?”

“He did.”

“It was?”——

“Henry—Ark, _alias_ Wilder.”

“It is vain to attempt denial,” said our adventurer rising, with an air
of pride that he intended should conceal the uneasy sensation that in
truth beset him; “I find you know me.”

“For a false traitor, sir.”

“Captain Heidegger, you are safe, here, in using these reproachful
terms.”

The Rover struggled, and struggled successfully, to keep down the
risings of his temper; but the effort lent to his countenance gleamings
of fierce and bitter scorn.

“You will communicate that fact also to your superiors,” he said, with
taunting irony. “The monster of the seas, he who plunders defenceless
fishermen ravages unprotected coasts, and eludes the flag of King
George, as other serpents steal into their caves at the footstep of
man, is safe in speaking his mind, backed by a hundred and fifty
freebooters, and in the security of his own cabin. Perhaps he knows
too, that he is breathing in the atmosphere of peaceful and
peace-making woman.”

But the first surprise of the subject of his scorn had passed, and he
was neither to be goaded into retort nor terrified into entreaties.
Folding his arms with calmness, Wilder simply replied,—

“I have incurred this risk, in order to drive a scourge from the ocean,
which had baffled all other attempts at its extermination. I knew the
hazard, and shall not shrink from its penalty.”

“You shall not, sir!” returned the Rover, striking the gong again with
a finger that appeared to carry in its touch the weight of a giant.
“Let the negro, and the topman his companion, be secured in irons, and,
on no account, permit them to communicate, by word or signal, with the
other ship.”—When the agent of his punishments, who had entered at the
well-known summons, had retired, he again turned to the firm and
motionless form that stood before him, and continued: “Mr Wilder, there
is a law which binds this community, into which you have so
treacherously stolen, together, that would consign you, and your
miserable confederates, to the yard-arm the instant your true character
should be known to my people. I have but to open that door, and to
pronounce the nature of your treason, in order to give you up to the
tender mercies of the crew.”

“You will not! no, you will not!” cried a voice at his elbow, which
thrilled on even all his iron nerves. “You have forgotten the ties
which bind man to his fellows, but cruelty is not natural to your
heart. By all the recollections of your earliest and happiest days; by
the tenderness and pity which watched your childhood; by that holy and
omniscient Being who suffers not a hair of the innocent to go
unrevenged, I conjure you to pause, before you forget your own awful
responsibility. No! you will not—cannot—dare not be so merciless!”

“What fate did he contemplate for me and my followers, when he entered
on this insidious design?” hoarsely demanded the Rover.

“The laws of God and man are with him,” you continued the governess,
quailing not, as her own contracting eye met the stern gaze which she
confronted. “’Tis reason that speaks in my voice; ’tis mercy which I
know is pleading at your heart. The cause, the motive, sanctify his
acts; while your career can find justification in the laws neither of
heaven nor earth.”

“This is bold language to sound in the ears of a blood-seeking,
remorseless pirate!” said the other, looking about him with a smile so
proud and conscious that it seemed to proclaim how plainly he saw that
the speaker relied on the very reverse of the qualities he named.

“It is the language of truth; and ears like yours cannot be deaf to the
sounds. If”——

“Lady, cease,” interrupted the Rover, stretching his arm towards her
with calmness and dignity. “My resolution was formed on the instant;
and no remonstrance nor apprehension of the consequence, can change it.
Mr Wilder, you are free. If you have not served me as faithfully as I
once expected, you have taught me a lesson in the art of physiognomy,
which shall leave me a wiser man for tho rest of my days.”

The conscious Wilder stood self-condemned and humbled. The strugglings
which stirred his inmost soul were easily to be read in the workings of
a countenance that was no longer masked in artifice, but which was
deeply charged with shame and sorrow The conflict lasted, however, but
for a moment.

“Perhaps you know not the extent of my object, Captain Heidegger,” he
said; “it embraced the forfeit of your life, and the destruction, or
dispersion, of your crew.”

“According to the established usages of that portion of the world
which, having the power, oppresses the remainder, it did. Go, sir;
rejoin your proper ship; I repeat, you are free.”

“I cannot leave you, Captain Heidegger without one word of
justification.”

“What! can the hunted, denounced, and condemned freebooter command an
explanation! Is even his good opinion necessary to a virtuous servant
of the Crown!”

“Use such terms of triumph and reproach as suit your pleasure, sir,”
returned the other, reddening to the temples as he spoke; “to me your
language can now convey no offence; still would I not leave you without
removing part of the odium which you think I merit.”

“Speak freely. Sir, you are my guest.”

Although the most cutting revilings could not have wounded the
repentant Wilder so deeply as this generous conduct, he so far subdued
his feelings as to continue,—

“You are not now to learn,” he said, “that vulgar rumour has given a
colour to your conduct and character which is not of a quality to
command the esteem of men.”

“You may find leisure to deepen the tints,” hastily interrupted his
listener, though the emotion which trembled in his voice plainly
denoted how deeply he felt the wound which was given by a world he
affected to despise.

“If called upon to speak at all, my words shall be those of truth,
Captain Heidegger. But is it surprising, that, filled with the ardour
of a service that you once thought honourable yourself, I should be
found willing to risk life, and even to play the hypocrite in order to
achieve an object that would not only have been rewarded, but approved,
had it been successful? With such sentiments I embarked on the
enterprise; but, as Heaven is my judge, your manly confidence had half
disarmed me before my foot had hardly crossed your threshold.”

“And yet you turned not back?”

“There might have been powerful reasons to the contrary,” resumed the
defendant, unconsciously glancing his eyes at the females as he spoke.
“I kept my faith at Newport; and, had my two followers then been
released from your ship, foot of mine should never have entered her
again,”

“Young man, I am willing to believe you. I think I penetrate your
motives. You have played a delicate game; and, instead of repining, you
will one day rejoice that it has been fruitless. Go, sir; a boat shall
attend you to the ‘Dart’.”

“Deceive not yourself, Captain Heidegger, in believing that any
generosity of yours can shut my eyes to my proper duty. The instant I
am seen by the Commander of the ship you name, your character will be
betrayed.”

“I expect it.”

“Nor will my hand be idle in the struggle that must follow. I may die,
here, a victim to my mistake if you please; but, the moment I am
released, I become your enemy.”

“Wilder!” exclaimed the Rover, grasping his hand, with a smile that
partook of the wild peculiarity of the action, “we should have been
acquainted earlier! But regret is idle. Go; should my people learn the
truth, any remonstrances of mine would be like whispers in a
whirlwind.”

“When last I joined the ‘Dolphin,’ I did not come alone.”

“Is it not enough,” rejoined the Rover, coldly recoiling for a step,
“that I offer liberty and life?”

“Of what service can a being, fair, helpless, and unfortunate as this,
be in a ship devoted to pursuits like those of the ‘Dolphin?’”

“Am I to be cut off for ever from communion with the best of my kind!
Go, sir; leave me the image of virtue, at least, though I may be
wanting in its substance.”
“Captain Heidegger, once, in the warmth of your better feelings, you
pronounced a pledge in favour of these females, which I hope came deep
from the heart.”

“I understand you, sir. What I then said is not, and shall not, be
forgotten. But whither would you lead your companions? Is not one
vessel on the high seas as safe as another? Am I to be deprived of
every means of making friends unto myself? Leave me sir—go—you may
linger until my permission to depart cannot avail you.”

“I shall never desert my charge,” said Wilder, firmly.

“Mr. Wilder—or I should rather call you Lieutenant Ark, I
believe”—returned the Rover, “you may trifle with my good nature till
the moment of your own security shall be past.”

“Act your will on me: I die at my post, or go accompanied by those with
whom I came.”

“Sir, the acquaintance of which you boast is not older than my own. How
know you that they prefer you for their protector? I have deceived
myself, and done poor justice to my own intentions, if they have found
cause for complaints, since their happiness or comfort has been in my
keeping. Speak, fair one; which will you for a protector?”

“Leave me, leave me!” exclaimed Gertrude, veiling her eyes, in terror,
from the insidious smile with which he approached her, as she would
have avoided the attractive glance of a basilisk. “Oh! if you have pity
in your heart, let us quit your ship!”

Notwithstanding the vast self-command which the being she so
ungovernably and spontaneously repelled had in common over his
feelings, no effort could repress the look of deep and humiliating
mortification with which he heard her. A cold and haggard smile gleamed
over his features, as he murmured, in a voice which he in vain
endeavoured to smother,—

“I have purchased this disgust from all my species and dearly must the
penalty be paid!—Lady, you and your lovely ward are the mistresses of
your own acts. This ship, and this cabin, are at your command; or, if
you elect to quit both, others will receive you.”

“Safety for our sex is only to be found beneath the fostering
protection of the laws,” said Mrs Wyllys “Would to God!”——

“Enough!” he interrupted, “you shall accompany your friend. The ship
will not be emptier than my heart, when all have left me.”

“Did you call?” asked a low voice at his elbow, in tones so plaintive
and mild, that they could not fail to catch his ear.

“Roderick,” he hurriedly replied, “you will find occupation below.
Leave us, good Roderick. For a while, leave me.”
Then, as if anxious to close the scene as speedily as possible, he gave
another of his signals on the gong. An order was given to convey Fid
and the black into a boat, whither he also sent the scanty baggage of
his female guests. So soon as these brief arrangements were completed,
he handed the governess with studied courtesy, through his wondering
people, to the side, and saw her safely seated, with her ward and
Wilder, in the pinnace. The oars were manned by the two seamen, and a
silent adieu was given by a wave of his hand; after which he
disappeared from those to whom their present release seemed as
imaginary and unreal as had appeared their late captivity.

The threat of the interference of the crew of the “Dolphin” was,
however, still ringing in the ears of Wilder. He made an impatient
gesture to his attendants to ply their oars, cautiously steering the
boat on such a course as should soonest lead her from beneath the guns
of the freebooters. While passing under the stern of the “Dolphin,” a
hoarse hail was sent across the waters, and the voice of the Rover was
heard speaking to the Commander of the “Dart.”

“I send you a party of your guests,” he said; “and, among them, all the
divinity of my ship.”

The passage was short; nor was time given for any of the liberated to
arrange their thoughts, before it became necessary to ascend the side
of the cruiser of the Crown.

“Heaven help us!” exclaimed Bignall, catching a glimpse of the sex of
his visiters through a port “Heaven help us both, Parson! That young
hair brained fellow has sent us a brace of petticoats aboard; and these
the profane reprobate calls his divinities! One may easily guess where
he has picked up such quality; but cheer up, Doctor; one may honestly
forget the cloth in five fathom water, you know.”

The facetious laugh of the old Commander of the “Dart” betrayed that he
was more than half disposed to overlook the fancied presumption of his
audacious inferior; furnishing a sort of pledge, to all who heard it,
that no undue scruples should defeat the hilarity of the moment. But
when Gertrude, flushed with the excitement of the scene through which
she had just passed, and beaming with a loveliness that derived so much
of its character from its innocence, appeared on his deck, the veteran
rubbed his-eyes in an amazement which could not have been greatly
surpassed, had one of that species of beings the Rover had named
actually fallen at his feet from the skies.

“The heartless scoundrel!” cried the worthy tar, “to lead astray one so
young and so lovely! Ha! as I live, my own lieutenant! How’s this, Mr
Ark! have we fallen on the days of miracles?”

An exclamation, which came deep from the heart the governess, and a low
and mournful echo from the lips of the divine, interrupted the further
expression of his indignation and his wonder.

“Captain Bignall,” observed the former, pointing to the tottering form
which was leaning on Wilder for support, “on my life, you are mistaken
in the character of this lady. It is more than twenty years since we
last met, but I pledge my own character for the purity and truth of
hers.”

“Lead me to the cabin,” murmured Mrs Wyllys. “Gertrude, my love, where
are we? Lead me to some secret place.”

Her request was complied with; the whole group retiring in a body from
before the sight of the spectators who thronged the deck. Here the
deeply agitated governess regained a portion of her self-command, and
then her wandering gaze sought the meek, concerned countenance of the
chaplain.

“This is a tardy and heart-rending meeting,” she said, pressing the
hand he gave her to her lips. “Gertrude, in this gentleman you see the
divine that united me to the man who once formed the pride and
happiness of my existence.”

“Mourn not his loss,” whispered the reverend priest, bending over her
chair, with the interest of a parent. “He was taken from you at an
early hour; but he died as all who loved him might have wished.

“And none was left to bear, in remembrance of his qualities, his proud
name to posterity! Tell me, good Merton, is not the hand of Providence
visible in this dispensation? Ought I not to humble myself before it,
as a just punishment of my disobedience to an affectionate, though too
obdurate, parent?”

“None may presume to pry into the mysteries of he righteous government
that orders all things. Enough for us, that we learn to submit to the
will of Him who rules, without questioning his justice.”

“But,” continued the governess, in tones so husky as to betray how
powerfully she felt the temptation to forget his admonition, “would not
one life have sufficed? was I to be deprived of all?”

“Madam, reflect! What has been done was done in wisdom, as I trust it
was in mercy.”

“You say truly. I will forget all of the sad events, but their
application to myself And you, worthy and benevolent Merton, where and
how have been passed your days, since the time of which we speak?”

“I am but a low and humble shepherd of a truant flock,” returned the
meek chaplain, with a sigh. “Many distant seas have I visited, and many
strange faces, and stranger natures, has it been my lot to encounter in
my pilgrimage. I am but lately returned, from the east, into the
hemisphere where I first drew breath; and, by permission of our
superiors, I came to pass a month in the vessel of a companion, whose
friendship bears even an older date than our own.”

“Ay, ay, Madam,” returned the worthy Bignall, whose feelings had been
not a little disturbed by the previous scene; “it is near half a
century since the Parson and I were boys together, and we have been
rubbing up old recollections on the cruise. Happy am I that a lady of
so commendable qualities has come to make one of our party.”

“In this lady you see the daughter of the late Captain——, and the
relict of the son of our ancient Commander, Rear-Admiral de Lacey,”
hastily resumed the divine, as though he knew the well-meaning honesty
of his friend was more to be trusted than his discretion.

“I knew them both; and brave men and thorough seamen were the pair! The
lady was welcome as your friend, Merton; but she is doubly so, as the
widow and child of the gentlemen you name.”

“De Lacey!” murmured an agitated voice in the ear of the governess.

“The law gives me a title to bear that name,” returned she whom we
shall still continue to call by her assumed appellation, folding her
weeping pupil long and affectionately to her bosom. “The veil is
unexpectedly withdrawn, my love, nor shall concealment be longer
affected. My father was the Captain of the flag-ship. Necessity
compelled him to leave me more in the society of your young relative
than he would have done, could he have foreseen the consequences. But I
knew both his pride and his poverty too well, to dare to make him
arbiter of my fate, after the alternative became, to my inexperienced
imagination worse than even his anger. We were privately united by this
gentleman, and neither of our parents knew of the connexion. Death”—

The voice of the widow became choaked, and she made a sign to the
chaplain, as if she would have him continue the tale.

“Mr de Lacey and his father-in-law fell in the same battle, within a
short month of the ceremony,” add ed the subdued voice of Merton. “Even
you, dearest Madam, never knew the melancholy particulars of their end.
I was a solitary witness of their deaths for to me were they both
consigned, amid the confusion of the battle. Their blood was mingled;
and your parent, in blessing the young hero, unconsciously blessed his
son.”

“Oh! I deceived his noble nature, and dearly have I paid the penalty!”
exclaimed the self-abased widow. “Tell me, Merton, did he ever know of
my marriage?”

“He did not. Mr de Lacey died first, and upon his bosom, for he loved
him ever as a child; but other thoughts than useless explanations were
then uppermost in their minds.”

“Gertrude,” said the governess, in hollow, repentant tones, “there is
no peace for our feeble sex but in submission; no happiness but in
obedience.”

“It is over now,” whispered the weeping girl; “all over, and forgotten.
I am your child—your own Gertrude—the creature of your formation.”

“Harry Ark!” exclaimed Bignall, clearing his throat with a hem so
vigorous as to carry the sound to the outer deck, seizing the arm of
his entranced lieutenant, and dragging him from the scene while he
spoke. “What the devil besets the boy! You forget that, all this time,
I am as ignorant of your own adventures as is his Majesty’s prime
minister of navigation Why do I see you, here, a visitor from a royal
cruiser, when I thought you were playing the mock pirate? and how came
that harum-scarum twig of nobility in possession of so goodly a
company, as well as of so brave a ship?”

Wilder drew a long and deep breath, like one that awakes from a
pleasing dream, reluctantly suffering himself to be forced from a spot
where he fondly felt that he could have continued, without weariness,
for ever.




Chapter XXIX.

“Let them achieve me, and then sell my bones.”

_Henry V._


The Commander of the “Dart,” and his bewildered lieutenant, had gained
the quarter-deck before either spoke again. The direction first taken
by the eyes of the latter was in quest of the neighbouring ship; nor
was the look entirely without that unsettled and vague expression which
seems to announce a momentary aberration of the faculties. But the
vessel of the Rover was in view, in all the palpable and beautiful
proportions of her admirable construction Instead of lying in a state
of rest, as when he left her, her head-yards had been swung, and, as
the sails filled with the breeze, the stately fabric had he gun to
Marve gracefully, though with no great velocity along the water. There
was not the slightest appearance however, of any attempt at escape in
the evolution. On the contrary, the loftier and lighter sails had all
been furled, and men were at the moment actively employed in sending to
the deck those smaller spars which were absolutely requisite in
spreading the canvas that would be needed in facilitating her flight.
Wilder turned from the sight with a sickening apprehension; for he well
knew that these were the preparations that skillful mariners are wont
to make, when bent on desperate combat.

“Ay, yonder goes your St. James’s seaman, with his three topsails full,
and his mizzen out, as if he had already forgotten he is to dine with
me, and that his name is to be found at one end of the list of
Commanders and mine at the other,” grumbled the displeased Bignall.
“But we shall have him coming round all in good time, I suppose, when
his appetite tells him the dinner hour. He might wear his colours in
presence of a senior, too, and no disgrace to his nobility. By the
Lord, Harry Ark, he handles those yards beautifully! I warrant you,
now, some honest man’s son is sent aboard his ship for a dry nurse, in
the shape of a first lieutenant, and we shall have him vapouring, all
dinner time, about ‘how my ship does this,’ and ‘I never suffer that.’
Ha! is it not so, sir? He has a thorough seaman for his First?”

“Few men understand the profession better than does the Captain of
yonder vessel himself,” returned Wilder.

“The devil he does! You have been talking with him, Mr Ark, about these
matters, and he has got some of the fashions of the ‘Dart.’ I see into
a mystery as quick as another!”

“I do assure you, Captain Bignall, there is no safety in confiding in
the ignorance of yonder extra ordinary man.”

“Ay, ay, I begin to overhaul his character. The young dog is a quiz,
and has been amusing himself with a sailor of what he calls the old
school. Am I right, sir? He has seen salt water before this cruise?”

“He is almost a native of the seas; for more than thirty years has he
passed his time on them.”

“There, Harry Ark, he has done you handsomely. Now, I have his own
assertion for it, that he will not be three-and-twenty until
to-morrow.”

“On my word, he has deceived you, sir.”

“I don’t know, Mr Ark; that is a task much easier attempted than
performed. Threescore and four years add as much weight to a man’s head
as to his heels! I may have undervalued the skill of the younker but,
as to his years, there can be no great mistake. But where the devil is
the fellow steering to? Has he need of a pinafore from his lady mother
to come on board of a man-of-war for his dinner?”

“See! he is indeed standing from us!” exclaimed Wilder, with a rapidity
and delight that would have excited the suspicions of one more
observant than his Commander.

“If I know the stern from the bows of a ship, what you say is truth,”
returned the other, with some austerity. “Hark ye, Mr Ark, I’ve a mind
to furnish the coxcomb a lesson in respect for his superiors and give
him a row to whet his appetite. By the Lord, I will; and he may write
home an account of this manoeuvre, too, in his next despatches. Fill
away the after-yards, sir; fill away. Since this _honourable_ youth is
disposed to amuse himself with a sailing-match, he can take no offence
that others are in the same humour.”

The lieutenant of the watch, to whom the order was addressed, complied;
and, in another minute, the “Dart” was also beginning to move a-head,
though in a direction directly opposite to that taken by the “Dolphin.”
The old man highly enjoyed his own decision, manifesting his
self-satisfaction by the infinite glee and deep chuckling of his
manner. He was too much occupied with the step he had just taken, to
revert immediately to the subject that had so recently been uppermost
in his mind; nor did the thought of pursuing the discourse occur to
him, until the two ships had left a broad field of water between them,
as each moved, with ease and steadiness, on its proper course.

“Let him note that in his log-book, Mr Ark,” the irritable old seaman
then resumed, returning to the spot which Wilder had not left during
the intervening time. “Though my cook has no great relish for a frog,
they who would taste of his skill must seek him. By the Lord, boy, he
will have a pull of it, if he undertake to come-to on that tack.—But
how happens it that you got into his ship? All that part of the cruise
remains untold.”

“I have been wrecked, sir, since you received my last letter.”

“What! has Davy Jones got possession of the red gentleman at last?”

“The misfortune occurred in a ship from Bristol, aboard which I was
placed as a sort of prize-master.—He certainly continues to stand
slowly to the northward!”

“Let the young coxcomb go! he will have all the better appetite for his
supper. And so you were picked up by his Majesty’s ship the ‘Antelope.’
Ay, I see into the whole affair. You have only to give an old sea-dog
his course and compass, and he will find his way to port in the darkest
night. But how happened it that this Mr Howard affected to be ignorant
of your name, sir, when he saw it on the list of my officers?”

“Ignorant! Did he seem ignorant? perhaps”—

“Say no more, my brave fellow, say no more,” interrupted Wilder’s
considerate but choleric Commander. “I nave met with such rebuffs
myself; but we are above them, sir, far above them and their
impertinences together. No man need be ashamed of having earned his
commission, as you and I have done, in fair weather and in foul.
Zounds, boy, I have fed one of the upstarts for a week, and then had
him stare at a church across the way, when I have fallen in with him in
the streets of London, in a fashion that might make a simple man
believe the puppy knew for what it had been built. Think no more of it,
Harry; worse things have happened to myself, I do assure you.”

“I went by my assumed name while in yonder ship,” Wilder forced himself
to add. “Even the ladies who were the companions of my wreck, know me
by no other.”

“Ah! that was prudent; and, after all, the young sprig was not
pretending genteel ignorance. How now, master Fid; you are welcome back
to the Dart.’”

“I’ve taken the liberty to say as much already to myself, your Honour,”
resumed the topman, who was busying himself, near his two officers, in
a manner that seemed to invite their attention. “A wholesome craft is
yonder, and boldly is she commanded, and stoutly is she manned; but,
for my part, having a character to lose, it is more to my taste to sail
in a ship that can shew her commission, when properly called on for the
same.”

The colour on Wilder’s cheeks went and came like the flushings of the
evening sky, and his eyes were turned in every direction but that which
would have encountered the astonished gaze of his veteran friend.

“I am not quite sure that I understand the meaning of the lad, Mr Ark.
Every officer, from the Captain to the boatswain, in the King’s fleet,
that is, every man of common discretion, carries his authority to act
as such with him to sea, or he might find himself in a situation as
awkward as that of a pirate.”

“That is just what I said, sir; but schooling and long use have given
your Honour a better outfit in words. Guinea and I have often talked
the matter over together, and serious thoughts has it given to us both,
more than once, Captain Bignall. ‘Suppose,’ says I to the black,
‘suppose one of his Majesty’s boats should happen to fall in with this
here craft, and we should come to loggerheads and matches,’ says I,
‘what would the like of us two do in such a god-send?’—‘Why,’ says the
black, ‘we would stand to our guns on the side of master Harry,’ says
he; nor did I gainsay the same; but, saving his presence and your
Honour’s, I just took the liberty to add, that, in my poor opinion, it
would be much more comfortable to be killed in an honest ship than on
the deck of a buccaneer.”

“A buccaneer!” exclaimed his Commander, with eyes distended, and an
open mouth.

“Captain Bignall,” said Wilder, “I may have offended past forgiveness,
in remaining so long silent; but, when you hear my tale, there may be
found some passages that shall plead my apology. The vessel in sight is
the ship of the renowned Red Rover—nay listen, I conjure you by all
that kindness you have so long shewn me, and then censure as you will.”

The words of Wilder, aided as they were by an earnest and manly manner,
laid a restraint on the mounting indignation of the choleric old
seaman. He listened gravely and intently to the rapid but clear tale
which his lieutenant hastened to recount; and, ere the latter had done,
he had more than half entered into those grateful, and certainly
generous, feelings which had made the youth so reluctant to betray the
obnoxious character of a man who had dealt so liberally by himself. A
few strong, and what might be termed professional, exclamations of
surprise and admiration, occasionally interrupted the narrative; but,
on the whole, he curbed his impatience and his feelings, in a manner
that was sufficiently remarkable, when the temperament of the
individual is duly considered.

“This is wonderful indeed!” he exclaimed, as the other ended; “and a
thousand pities is it that so honest a fellow should be so arrant a
knave. But, Harry, we can never let him go at large after all, our
loyalty and our religion forbid it. We must tack ship, and stand after
him; if fair words won’t bring him to reason, I see no other remedy
than blows.”

“I fear it is no more than our duty, sir,” returned the young man, with
a deep sigh.

“It is a matter of religion.—And then the prating puppy, that he sent
on board me, is no Captain, after all! Still it was impossible to
deceive me as to the air and manner of a gentleman. I warrant me, some
young reprobate of a good family, or he would never have acted the
sprig so well. We must try to keep his name a secret, Mr Ark, in order
that no discredit should fall upon his friends. Our aristocratic
columns, though they get a little cracked and defaced, are, after all,
the pillars of the throne, and it does not become us to let vulgar eyes
look too closely into their unsoundness.”

“The individual who visited the ‘Dart’ was the Rover himself.”

“Ha! the Red Rover in my ship, nay, in my very presence!” exclaimed the
old tar, in a species of honest horror. “You are now pleased, sir, to
trifle with my good nature.”

“I should forget a thousand obligations, ere I could be so bold. On my
solemn asseveration, sir, it was no other.”

“This is unaccountable! extraordinary to a miracle! His disguise was
very complete, I will confess to deceive one so well skilled in the
human countenance. I saw nothing, sir, of his shaggy whiskers heard
nothing of his brutal voice, nor perceived any of those monstrous
deformities which are universally acknowledged to distinguish the man.”

“All of which are no more than the embellishments of vulgar rumour, I
fear me, sir, that the boldest and most dangerous of all our vices are
often found under the most pleasing exteriors.”

“But this is not even a man of inches, sir.”

“His body is not large, but it contains the spirit of a giant.”

“And do you believe yonder ship, Mr Ark, to be the vessel that fought
us in the equinox of March?”

“I know it to be no other.”

“Hark ye, Harry, for your sake, I will deal generously by the rogue. He
once escaped me, by the loss of a topmast, and stress of weather; but
we have here a good working breeze, that a man may safely count on, and
a fine regular sea. He is therefore mine, so soon as I choose to make
him so;—for I do not think he has any serious intention to run.”

“I fear not,” returned Wilder, unconsciously betraying his wishes in
the words.

“Fight he cannot, with any hopes of success; and, as he seems to be
altogether a different sort of personage from what I had supposed, we
will try the merits of negotiation. Will you undertake to be the bearer
of my propositions?—or, perhaps, he might repent of his moderation.”

“I pledge myself for his faith,” eagerly exclaimed Wilder “Let a gun be
fired to leeward. Mind, sir, all the tokens must be amicable—a flag of
truce set out at our main, and I will risk every hazard to lead him
back into the bosom of society.”

“By George, it would at least be acting a Christian part,” returned the
Commander, after a moment’s thought; “and, though we miss knighthood
below, lad, for our success, there will be better birth cleared for us
aloft.”

No sooner had the warm-hearted, and perhaps a little visionary, Captain
of the “Dart,” and his lieutenant, determined on this measure, than
they both set eagerly about the means of insuring its success. The helm
of the ship was put a-lee; and, as her head came sweeping up into the
wind, a sheet of flame flashed from her leeward bow-port, sending the
customary amicable intimation across the water, that those who governed
her movements would communicate with the possessors of the vessel in
sight. At the same instant, a small flag, with a spotless field was
seen floating at the topmost elevation of all her spars, whilst the
flag of England was lowered from the gaff. A half minute of deep
inquietude succeeded these signals, in the bosoms of those who had
ordered them to be made. Their suspense was however speedily
terminated. A cloud of smoke drove before the wind from the vessel of
the Rover, and then the smothered explosion of the answering gun came
dull upon their ears. A flag, similar to their own, was seen floating,
as it might be, like a dove fanning its wings, far above her tops; but
no emblem of any sort was borne at the spar, where the colours which
distinguish the national character of a cruiser are usually seen.

“The fellow has the modesty to carry a naked gaff in our presence,”
said Bignall, pointing out the circumstance to his companion, as an
augury favourable to their success. “We will stand for him until within
a reasonable distance, and then you shall take to the boat.”

In conformity with this determination, the “Dart” was brought on the
other tack, and several sails were set, in order to quicken her speed.
When at the distance of half cannon shot, Wilder suggested to his
superior the propriety of arresting their further progress in order to
avoid the appearance of hostilities. The boat was immediately lowered
into the sea, and manned; a flag of truce set in her bows: and the
whole was reported ready to receive the bearer of the message.

“You may hand him this statement of our force, Mr Ark; for, as he is a
reasonable man, he will see the advantage it gives us,” said the
Captain, after having exhausted his manifold and often repeated
instructions. “I think you may promise him indemnity for the past,
provided he comply with all my conditions; at all events, you will say
that no influence shall be spared to get a complete whitewashing for
himself at least. God bless you, boy! Take care to say nothing of the
damages we received in the affair of March last; for—ay—for the equinox
was blowing heavy at the time, you know. Adieu! and success attend
you!”

The boat shoved off from the side of the vessel as he ended, and in a
few moments the listening Wilder was borne far beyond the sound of any
further words of advisement. Our adventurer had sufficient time to
reflect on the extraordinary situation in which he now found himself,
during the row to the still distant ship. Once or twice, slight and
uneasy glimmerings of distrust, concerning the prudence of the step he
was taking, beset his mind; though a recollection of the lofty feeling
of the man in whom he confided ever presented itself in sufficient
season to prevent the apprehension from gaining any undue ascendency.
Notwithstanding the delicacy of his situation, that characteristic
interest in his profession, which is rarely dormant in the bosom of a
thorough-bred seaman, was strongly stimulated as he approached the
vessel of the Rover. The perfect symmetry of her spars the graceful
heavings and settings of the whole fabric is it rode, like a marine
bird, on the long, regular swells of the trades, and the graceful
inclinations of the tapering masts, as they waved across the blue
canopy, which was interlaced by all the tracery of her complicated
tackle, was not lost on an eye that knew no less how to prize the order
of the whole than to admire the beauty of the object itself. There is a
high and exquisite taste, which the seaman attains in the study of a
machine that all have united to commend, which may be likened to the
sensibilities that the artist acquires by close and long contemplation
of the noblest monuments of antiquity. It teaches him to detect those
imperfections which would escape any less instructed eye; and it
heightens the pleasure with which a ship at sea is gazed at, by
enabling the mind to keep even pace with the enjoyment of the senses.
It is this powerful (and to a landsman incomprehensible) charm that
forms the secret tie which binds the mariner so closely to his vessel,
and which often leads him to prize her qualities as one would esteem
the virtues of a friend, and almost to be equally enamoured of the fair
proportions of his ship and of those of his mistress. Other men may
have their different inanimate subjects of admiration; but none of
their feelings so thoroughly enter into the composition of the being as
the affection which the mariner comes, in time, to feel for his vessel.
It is his home, his theme of constant and frequently of painful
interest, his tabernacle and often his source of pride and exultation.
As she gratifies or disappoints his high-wrought expectations in her
speed or in the fight, mid shoals and hurricanes, a character for good
or luckless qualities is earned, which are as often in reality due to
the skill or ignorance of those who guide her, as to any inherent
properties of the fabric. Still does the ship itself, in the eyes of
the seaman, bear away the laurel of success, or suffer the ignominy of
defeat and misfortune; and, when the reverse arrives, the result is
merely regarded as some extraordinary departure from the ordinary
character of the vessel, as if the construction possessed the powers of
entire self-command and perfect volition.

Though not so deeply imbued with that species of superstitious
credulity, on this subject, as the inferiors of his profession, Wilder
was keenly awake to most of the sensibilities of a mariner. So
strongly, indeed, was he alive to this feeling, on the present
occasion, that for a moment he forgot the critical nature of his
errand, as he drew within plainer view of a vessel that, with justice,
might lay claim to be a jewel of the ocean.

“Lay on your oars, lads,” he said, signing to his people to arrest the
progress of the boat; “lay on your oars! Did you ever see masts more
beautifully in line than those, master Fid, or sails that had a fairer
fit?”

The topman, who rowed the stroke-oar of the pinnace cast a look over
his shoulder, and, stowing into one of his cheeks a lump that resembled
a wad laid by the side of its gun, he was not slow to answer, on an
occasion where his opinion was so directly demanded.

“I care not who knows it,” he said, “for, done by honest men or done by
knaves, I told the people on the forecastle of the; ‘Dart,’ in the
first five minutes after I got among them again, that they might be at
Spithead a month, and not see hamper so light, and yet so handy, as is
seen aboard that flyer. Her lower rigging is harpened-in, like the
waist of Nell Dale after she has had a fresh pull upon her
stay-lanyards, and there isn’t a block, among them all, that seems
bigger in its place than do the eyes of the girl in her own
good-looking countenance. That bit of a set that you see to her
fore-brace-block, was given by the hand of one Richard Fid; and the
heart on her main-stay was turned-in by Guinea, here; and, considering
he is a nigger, I call it ship-shape.”

“She is beautiful in every part!” said Wilder, drawing a long breath.
“Give way, my men, give way! Do you think I have come here to take the
soundings of the ocean?”

The crew started at the hurried tones of their lieutenant and in
another minute the boat was at the side of the vessel. The stern and
threatening glances that Wilder encountered, as his foot touched the
planks, caused him to pause an instant, ere he advanced further amid
the crew. But the presence of the Rover himself, who stood, with his
peculiar air of high and imposing authority, on the quarter-deck,
encouraged him to proceed, after permitting a delay that was too slight
to attract attention. His lips were in the act of parting, when a sign
from the other induced him to remain silent, until they were both in
the privacy of the cabin.

“Suspicion is awake among my people, Mr Ark,” commenced the Rover, when
they were thus retired, laying a marked and significant emphasis on the
name he used. “Suspicion is stirring, though, as yet, they hardly know
what to credit. The manoeuvres of the two ships have not been such as
they are wont to see, and voices are not wanting to whisper in their
ears matter that is somewhat injurious to your interests. You have not
done well, sir, in returning among us.”

“I came by the order of my superior, and under the sanction of a flag.”

“We are small reasoners in the legal distinction of the world, and may
mistake your rights in so novel a character. But,” he immediately
added, with dignity, “if you bear a message, I may presume it is
intended for my ears.”

“And for no other. We are not alone, Captain Heidegger.”

“Heed not the boy; he is deaf at my will.”

“I could wish to communicate to you only the offers that I bear.”

“That mast is not more senseless than Roderick,” said the other calmly,
but with decision.

“Then must I speak at every hazard.—The Commander of yon ship, who
bears the commission of our royal master George the Second, has ordered
me to say thus much for your consideration: On condition that you will
surrender this vessel, with all her stores, armament, and warlike
munitions, uninjured he will content himself with taking ten hostages
from your crew, to be decided by lot, yourself, and one other of your
officers, and either to receive the remainder into the service of the
King, or to suffer them to disperse in pursuit of a calling more
creditable, and, as it would now appear, more safe.”

“This is the liberality of a prince! I should kneel and kiss the deck
before one whose lips utter such sounds of mercy!”

“I repeat but the words of my superior,” Wilder resumed. “For yourself,
he further promises, that his interest shall be exerted to procure a
pardon, on condition that you quit the seas, and renounce the name of
Englishman for ever.”

“The latter is done to his hands: But may I know the reason that such
lenity is shewn to one whose name has been so long proscribed of men?”

“Captain Bignall has heard of your generous treatment of his officer,
and the delicacy that the daughter and widow of two ancient brethren in
arms have received at your hands. He confesses that rumour has not done
entire justice to your character.”

A mighty effort kept down the gleam of exultation that flashed across
the features of the listener, who, however, succeeded in continuing
utterly calm and immovable.

“He has been deceived, sir”—he coldly resumed, as though he would
encourage the other to proceed.

“That much is he free to acknowledge. A representation of this common
error, to the proper authorities, will have weight in procuring the
promised amnesty for the past, and, as he hopes, brighter prospects for
the future.”

“And does he urge no other motive than his pleasure why I should make
this violent change in all my habits, why I should renounce an element
that has become as necessary to me as the one I breathe and why, in
particular, I am to disclaim the vaunted privilege of calling myself a
Briton?”

“He does. This statement of a force, which you may freely examine with
your own eyes, if so disposed, must convince you of the hopelessness of
resistance, and will, he thinks, induce you to accept his offers.”

“And what is _your_ opinion?” the other demanded, with a meaning smile
and peculiar emphasis, as he extended a hand to receive the written
statement. “But I beg pardon,” he hastily added, taking the look of
gravity from the countenance of his companion “I trifle, when the
moment requires all our seriousness.”

The eye of the Rover ran rapidly over the paper, resting itself, once
or twice, with a slight exhibition of interest, on particular points,
that seemed most to merit his attention.

“You find the superiority such as I had already given you reason to
believe?” demanded Wilder, when the look of the other wandered from the
paper.

“I do.”

“And may I now ask your decision on the offer?”

“First, tell me what does your own heart advise? This is but the
language of another.”

“Captain Heidegger,” said Wilder, colouring, “I will not attempt to
conceal, that, had this message depended solely on myself, it might
have been couched in different terms; but as one, who still deeply
retains the recollection of your generosity, as a man would not
willingly induce even an enemy to an act of dishonour, do I urge their
acceptance. You will excuse me, if I say, that, in my recent
intercourse I have had reason to believe you already perceive that
neither the character you could wish to earn, nor the content that all
men crave, is to be found in your present career.”

“I had not thought I entertained so close a casuist in Mr Henry Wilder.
Have you more to urge, sir?”

“Nothing,” returned the disappointed and grieved messenger of the
“Dart.”

“Yes, yes, he has,” said a low but eager voice at the elbow of the
Rover, which rather seemed to breathe out the syllables than dare to
utter them aloud; “he has not yet delivered the half of his commission,
or sadly has he forgotten the sacred trust!”

“The boy is often a dreamer,” interrupted the Rover, smiling, with a
wild and haggard look. “He sometimes gives form to his unmeaning
thoughts, by clothing them in words.”

“My thoughts are not unmeaning,” continued Roderick, in a louder and
far bolder strain. “If his peace or happiness be dear to you, do not
yet leave him. Tell him of his high and honourable name of his youth;
of that gentle and virtuous being that he once so fondly loved, and
whose memory, even now, he worships. Speak to him of these, as you know
how to speak; and, on my life, his ear will not be deaf, his heart
cannot be callous to your words.”

“The urchin is mad!”

“I am not mad; or, if maddened, it is by the crimes, the dangers, of
those I love. Oh! Mr Wilder, do not leave him. Since you have been
among us, he is nearer to what I know he once was, than formerly. Take
away that mistaken statement of your force; threats do but harden him:
As a friend admonish; but hope for nothing as a minister of vengeance.
You know not the fearful nature of the man, or you would not attempt to
stop a torrent. Now—now speak to him; for, see, his eye is already
growing kinder.”

“It is in pity, boy, to witness how thy reason wavers.”

“Had it never swerved more than at this moment Walter, another need not
be called upon to speak between thee and me! My words would then have
been regarded, my voice would then have been loud enough to be heard.
Why are you dumb? a single happy syllable might now save him.”

“Wilder, the child is frightened by this counting of guns and numbering
of people. He fears the anger of your anointed master. Go; give him
place in your boat, and recommend him to the mercy of your superior.”

“Away, away!” cried Roderick. “I shall not, will not, cannot leave you.
Who is there left for me in this world but you?”

“Yes,” continued the Rover, whose forced calmness of expression had
changed to one of deep and melancholy musing; “it will indeed be better
thus. See, here is much gold; you will commend him to the care of that
admirable woman who already watches one scarcely less helpless, though
possibly less—”

“Guilty! speak the word boldly, Walter. I have earned the epithet, and
shall not shrink to hear it spoken. Look,” he said, taking the
ponderous bag which had been extended towards Wilder, and holding it
high above his head, in scorn, “this can I cast from me; but the tie
which binds me to you shall never be broken.”

As he spoke, the lad approached an open window of the cabin; a splash
upon the water was heard, and then a treasure, that might have
furnished a competence to moderate wishes, was lost for ever to the
uses of those who had created its value. The lieutenant of the “Dart”
turned in haste to deprecate the anger of the Rover; but his eye could
trace, in the features of the lawless chief, no other emotion than a
pity which was discoverable even through his calm and unmoved smile.

“Roderick would make but a faithless treasurer,” he said. “Still it is
not too late to restore him to his friends. The loss of the gold can be
repaired; but, should any serious calamity befall the boy, I might
never regain a perfect peace of mind.”

“Then keep him near yourself,” murmured the lad, whose vehemence had
seemingly expended itself. “Go, Mr Wilder, go; your boat is waiting; a
longer stay will be without an object.”

“I fear it will!” returned our adventurer, who had not ceased, during
the previous dialogue, to keep his look fastened, in manly
commiseration, on the countenance of the boy; “I greatly fear it
will!—Since I have come the messenger of another, Captain Heidegger it
is your province to supply a fitting answer to my proposition.”

The Rover took him by the arm, and led him to a position whence they
might look upon the outer scene. Then, pointing upward at his spars,
and making his companion observe the small quantity of sail he carried,
he simply said, “Sir, you are a seaman and may judge of my intentions
by this sight I shall neither seek nor avoid your boasted cruiser of
King George.”




Chapter XXX.

“Front to front,
Bring thou this fiend——
Within my sword’s length set him; if he ’scape,
Heaven forgive him too!”

_Macbeth._


“You have brought the grateful submission of the pirate to my offers!”
exclaimed the sanguine Commander of the “Dart” to his messenger, as the
foot of the latter once more touched his deck.

“I bring nothing but defiance!” was the unexpected reply.

“Did you exhibit my statement? Surely, Mr Ark so material a document
was not forgotten!”

“Nothing was forgotten that the warmest interest in his safety could
suggest, Captain Bignall. Still the chief of yonder lawless ship
refuses to hearken to your conditions.”

“Perhaps, sir, he imagines that the ‘Dart’ is defective in some of her
spars,” returned the hasty old seaman, compressing his lips, with a
look of wounded pride; “he may hope to escape by pressing the canvas on
his own light-heeled ship.”

“Does that look like flight?” demanded Wilder, extending an arm towards
the nearly naked spars and motionless hull of their neighbour. “The
utmost I can obtain is an assurance that he will not be the assailant.”

“’Fore George, he is a merciful youth! and one that should be commended
for his moderation! He will not run his disorderly, picarooning company
under the guns of a British man-of-war, because he owes a little
reverence to the flag of his master! Hark ye, Mr Ark, we will remember
the circumstance when questioned at the Old Bailey. Send the people to
their guns, sir, and ware the ship round, to put an end at once to this
foolery, or we shall have him sending a boat aboard to examine our
commissions.”

“Captain Bignall,” said Wilder, leading his Commander still further
from the ears of their inferiors, “I may lay some little claim to merit
for services done under your own eyes, and in obedience to your orders.
If my former conduct may give me a title to presume to counsel one of
your great experience, suffer me to urge a short delay.”

“Delay! Does Henry Ark hesitate, when the enemies of his King, nay
more, the enemies of man, are daring him to his duty!”

“Sir, you mistake me. I hesitate, in order that the flag under which we
sail may be free from stain, and not with any intent of avoiding the
combat. Our enemy, _my_ enemy knows that he has nothing now to expect,
for his past generosity, but kindness, should he become our captive.
Still, Captain Bignall, I ask for time, to prepare the ‘Dart’ for a
conflict that will try all her boasted powers, and to insure a victory
that will not be bought without a price.”

“But should he escape”—

“On my life he will not attempt it. I not only know the man, but how
formidable are his means of resistance. A short half hour will put us
in the necessary condition, and do no discredit either to our spirit or
to our prudence.”

The veteran yielded a reluctant consent, which was not, however,
accorded without much muttering concerning the disgrace a British
man-of-war incurred in not running alongside the boldest pirate that
floated, and blowing him out of water, with a single match. Wilder, who
was accustomed to the honest professional bravados that often formed a
peculiar embellishment to the really firm and manly resolution of the
seamen of that age, permitted him to make his plaints at will, while he
busied himself in a manner that he knew was now of the last importance
and in a duty that properly came under his more immediate inspection,
in consequence of the station he occupied.

The “order for all hands to clear ship for action” was again given, and
received in the cheerful temper with which mariners are wont to welcome
any of the more important changes of their exciting profession. Little
remained, however, to be done; for most of the previous preparations
had still been left, as at the original meeting of the two vessels.
Then came the beat to quarters, and the more serious and
fearful-looking preparations for certain combat. After these several
arrangements had been completed, the crew at their guns, the
sail-trimmers at the braces, and the officers in their several
batteries, the after-yards were swung, and the ship once more put in
motion.

During this brief interval, the vessel of the Rover lay, at the
distance of half a mile, in a state of entire rest, without betraying
the smallest interest in the obvious movements of her hostile
neighbour. When, however, the “Dart” was seen yielding to the breeze,
and gradually increasing her velocity, until the water was gathering
under her fore-foot in a little rolling wave of foam, the bows of the
other fell off from the direction of the wind, the topsail was filled,
and, in her turn, the hull was held in command, by giving to it the
impetus of motion. The “Dart” now set again at her gaff that broad
field which had been lowered during the conference, and which had
floated in triumph through the hazards and struggles of a thousand
combats. No answering emblem, however was exhibited from the peak of
her adversary.

In this manner the two ships “gathered way,” as it is expressed in
nautical language, watching each other with eyes as jealous as though
they had been two rival monsters of the great deep, each endeavouring
to conceal from his antagonist the evolution contemplated next. The
earnest, serious manner of Wilder had not failed to produce its
influence on the straight-minded seaman who commanded the ‘Dart;’ and,
by this time, he was as much disposed as his lieutenant to approach the
conflict leisurely, and with proper caution.

The day had hitherto been cloudless, and a vault of purer blue never
canopied a waste of water, than the arch which had swept for hours
above the heads of our marine adventurers. But, as if nature frowned on
their present bloody designs, a dark, threatening mass of vapour was
blending the ocean with the sky, in a direction opposed to the steady
currents of the air, These well-known and ominous signs did not escape
the vigilance of those who manned the hostile vessels, but the danger
was still deemed too remote to interrupt the higher interests of the
approaching combat.

“We have a squall brewing in the west,” said the experienced and wary
Bignall, pointing to the frowning symptoms as he spoke; “but we can
handle the pirate, and get all snug again, before it works its way up
against this breeze.”

Wilder assented; for, by this time, high professional pride was
swelling in his bosom also, and a generous rivalry was getting the
mastery of feelings that were possibly foreign to his duty, however
natural they might have been in one as open to kindness as himself.

“The Rover is sending down even his lighter masts!” exclaimed the
youth; “it would seem that he greatly distrusts the weather.”

“We will not follow his example; for he will wish they were aloft
again, the moment we get him fairly under the play of our batteries. By
George our King, but he has a pretty moving boat under him. Let fall
the main-course, sir; down with it, or we shall have it night before we
get the rogue a-beam.”

The order was obeyed; and then the “Dart,” feeling the powerful
impulse, quickened her speed like an animated being, that is freshly
urged by its apprehensions or its wishes. By this time, she had gained
a position on the weather-quarter of her adversary who had not
manifested the smallest desire to prevent her attaining so material an
advantage. On the contrary, while the “Dolphin” kept the same canvas
spread, she continued to lighten her top-hamper bringing as much of the
weight as possible, from the towering height of her tall masts, to the
greater security of the hull. Still, the distance between them was too
great, in the opinion of Bignall, to commence the contest, while the
facility with which his adversary moved a-head threatened to protract
the important moment to an unreasonable extent, or to reduce him to a
crowd of sail that might prove embarrassing while enveloped in the
smoke, and pressed by the urgencies of the combat.

“We will touch his pride, sir, since you think him a man of spirit,”
said the veteran, to his faithful coadjutor: “Give him a weather-gun,
and show him another of his Master’s ensigns.”

The roar of the piece, and the display of three more of the fields of
England, in quick succession, from different parts of the “Dart,”
failed to produce the slightest evidence, even of observation, aboard
their seemingly insensible neighbour. The “Dolphin” still kept on her
way, occasionally swooping up gracefully to touch the wind, and then
deviating from her course again to leeward, as the porpoise is seen to
turn aside from his direction to snuff the breeze, while he lazily
sports along his briny path.

“He will not be moved by any of the devices of lawful and ordinary
warfare,” said Wilder, when he witnessed the indifference with which
their challenge had been received.

“Then try him with a shot.”

A gun was now discharged from the side next the still receding
“Dolphin.” The iron messenger was seen bounding along the surface of
the sea, skipping lightly from wave to wave, until it cast a little
cloud of spray upon the very deck of their enemy, as it boomed
harmlessly past her hull. Another, and yet another, followed, without
in any manner extracting signal or notice from the Rover.

“How’s this!” exclaimed the disappointed Bignall. “Has he a charm for
his ship, that all our shot sweep by him in rain! Master Fid, can you
do nothing for the credit of honest people, and the honour of a
pennant? Let us hear from your old favourite; in times past she used to
speak to better purpose.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” returned the accommodating Richard who, in the sudden
turns of his fortune, found himself in authority over a much-loved and
long-cherished piece. “I christened the gun after Mistress Whiffle,
your Honour, for the same reason, that they both can do their own
talking. Now, stand aside, my lads, and let clattering Kate have a
whisper in the discourse.”

Richard, who had coolly taken his sight, while speaking, now
deliberately applied the match with his own hand, and, with a
philosophy that was sufficiently to be commended in a mercenary, sent
what he boldly pronounced to be “a thorough straight-goer” across the
water, in the direction of his recent associates. The usual moments of
suspense succeeded and then the torn fragments, which were seen
scattered in the air, announced that the shot had passed through the
nettings of the “Dolphin.” The effect on the vessel of the Rover was
instantaneous, and nearly magical. A long stripe of cream-coloured
canvas, which had been artfully extended, from her stem to her stern,
in a line with her guns, disappeared as suddenly as a bird would shut
its wings, leaving in its place a broad blood-red belt, which was
bristled with the armament of the ship. At the same time, an ensign of
a similar ominous colour, rose from her poop, and, fluttering darkly
and fiercely for a moment, it became fixed at the end of the gaff.

“Now I know him for the knave that he is!” cried the excited Bignall;
“and, see! he has thrown away his false paint, and shows the well-known
bloody side, from which he gets his name. Stand to your guns, my men!
the pirate is getting earnest.”

He was still speaking, when a sheet of bright flame glanced from out
that streak of red which was so well adapted to work upon the
superstitious awe of the common mariners, and was followed by the
simultaneous explosion of nearly a dozen wide-mouthed pieces of
artillery. The startling change, from inattention and indifference, to
this act of bold and decided hostility, produced a strong effect on the
boldest heart on board the King’s cruiser. The momentary interval of
suspense was passed in unchanged attitudes and looks of deep attention;
and then the rushing of the iron storm was heard hurtling through the
air, as it came fearfully on. The crash that followed, mingled, as it
was, with human groans, and succeeded by the tearing of riven plank,
and the scattering high of splinters, ropes, blocks, and the implements
of war, proclaimed the fatal accuracy of the broadside. But the
surprise, and, with it, the brief confusion, endured but for an
instant. The English shouted, and sent back a return to the deadly
assault they had just received, recovering manfully and promptly from
the shock which it had assuredly given.

The ordinary and more regular cannonading of a naval combat succeeded.
Anxious to precipitate the issue, both ships pressed nigher to each
other the while, until, in a few moments, the two white canopies of
smoke, that were wreathing about their respective masts, were blended
in one, marking a solitary spot of strife, in the midst of a scene of
broad and bright tranquillity. The discharges of the cannon were hot,
close, and incessant. While the hostile parties, how ever, closely
mutated each other in their zeal in dealing out destruction, a peculiar
difference marked the distinction in character of the two crews. Loud,
cheering shouts accompanied each discharge from the lawful cruiser,
while the people of the rover did their murderous work amid the deep
silence of desperation.

The spirit and uproar of the scene soon quickened that blood, in the
veins of the veteran Bignall, which had begun to circulate a little
slowly by time.

“The fellow has not forgotten his art!” he exclaimed as the effects of
his enemy’s skill were getting but too manifest, in the rent sails,
shivered spars, and tottering masts of his own ship. “Had he but the
commission of the King in his pocket, one might call him a hero!”

The emergency was too urgent to throw away the time in words. Wilder
answered only by cheering his own people to their fierce and laborious
task. The ships had now fallen off before the wind, and were running
parallel to each other, emitting sheets of flame, that were incessantly
glancing through immense volumes of smoke. The spars of the respective
vessels were alone visible, at brief and uncertain intervals. Many
minutes had thus passed, seeming to those engaged but a moment of time,
when the mariners of the “Dart” found that they no longer held their
vessel in the quick command, so necessary to their situation. The
important circumstance was instantly conveyed from the master to
Wilder, and from Wilder to his superior. A hasty consultation on the
cause and consequences of this unexpected event was the immediate and
natural result.

“See!” cried Wilder, “the sails are already banging against the masts
like rags; the explosions of the artillery have stilled the wind.”

“Hark!” answered the more experienced Bignall: “There goes the
artillery of heaven among our own guns.—The squall is already upon
us—port the helm, sir, and sheer the ship out of the smoke! Hard a-port
with the helm, sir, at once!—hard with it a-port I say.”

But the lazy motion of the vessel did not answer to the impatience of
those who directed her movements nor did it meet the pressing
exigencies of the moment. In the mean time, while Bignall, and the
officers whose duties kept them near his person, assisted by the
sail-trimmers, were thus occupied, the people in the batteries
continued their murderous employment. The roar of cannon was still
constant, and nearly overwhelming, though there were instants when the
deep ominous mutterings of the atmosphere were too distinctly audible
to be mistaken. Still the eye could lend no assistance to the hearing,
in determining the judgment of the mariners. Hulls, spars, and sails
were alike enveloped in the curling wreaths which wrapped heaven, air,
vessels, and ocean, alike, in one white, obscure, foggy mantle. Even
the persons of the crew were merely seen at instants, labouring at the
guns, through brief and varying openings.

“I never knew the smoke pack so heavy on the clerk of a ship before,”
said Bignall, with a concern that even his caution could not entirely
repress. “Keep the helm a-port—jam it hard, sir! By Heaven Mr Wilder,
those knaves well know they are struggling for their lives!”

“The fight is all our own!” shouted the second lieutenant, from among
the guns, stanching, as he spoke, the blood of a severe splinter-wound
in the face, and far too intent on his own immediate occupation to have
noticed the signs of the weather. “He has not answered with a single
gun, for near a minute.”

“’Fore George, the rogues have enough!” exclaimed the delighted
Bignall. “Three cheers for vic——”

“Hold, sir!” interrupted Wilder, with sufficient decision to check his
Commander’s premature exultation; “on my life, our work is not so soon
ended. I think, indeed, his guns are silent;—but, see! the smoke is
beginning to lift. In a few more minutes, if our own fire should cease,
the view will be clear.”

A shout from the men in the batteries interrupted his words; and then
came a general cry that the pirates were sheering off. The exultation
at this fancied evidence of their superiority was, however, soon and
fearfully interrupted. A bright, vivid flash penetrated through the
dense vapour which still hung about them in a most extraordinary
manner, and was followed by a crash from the heavens, to which the
Simultaneous explosion of fifty pieces of artillery would have sounded
feeble.

“Call the people from their guns!” said Bignall, in those suppressed
tones that are only more portentous from their forced and unnatural
calmness: “Call them away at once, sir, and get the canvas in!”

Wilder, startled more at the proximity and apparent weight of the
squall than at words to which he had been long accustomed, delayed not
to give an order that was seemingly so urgent. The men left their
batteries, like athletæ retiring from the arena, some bleeding and
faint, some still fierce and angry, and all more or less excited by the
furious scene in which they had just been actors. Many sprung to the
well-known ropes, while others, as they ascended into the cloud which
still hung on the vessel became lost to the eye in her rigging.

“Shall I reef, or furl?” demanded Wilder, standing with the trumpet at
his lips, ready to issue the necessary order.

“Hold, sir; another minute will give us an opening.”

The lieutenant paused; for he was not slow to see that now, indeed, the
veil was about to be drawn from their real situation. The smoke, which
had lain upon their very decks, as though pressed down by the
superincumbent weight of the atmosphere first began to stir; was then
seen eddying among the masts; and, finally, whirled wildly away before
a powerful current of air. The view was, indeed, now all before them.

In place of the glorious sun, and that bright, blue canopy which had
lain above them a short half-hour before, the heavens were clothed in
one immense black veil. The sea reflected the portentous colour,
looking dark and angrily. The waves had already lost their regular rise
and fall, and were tossing to and fro, as if awaiting the power that
was to give them direction and greater force. The flashes from the
heavens were not in quick succession; but the few that did break upon
the gloominess of the scene came in majesty, and with dazzling
brightness. They were accompanied by the terrific thunder of the
tropics in which it is scarcely profanation to fancy that the voice of
One who made the universe is actually speaking to the creatures of his
hand. On every side, was the appearance of a fierce and dangerous
struggle in the elements. The vessel of the Rover was running lightly
before a breeze, which had already come fresh and fitful from the
cloud, with her sails reduced, and her people coolly, but actively,
employed in repairing the damages of the fight.

Not a moment was to be lost in imitating the example of the wary
freebooters. The head of the “Dart” was hastily, and happily, got in a
direction contrary to the breeze; and, as she began to follow the
course taken by the “Dolphin,” an attempt was made to gather her torn
and nearly useless causes to the yards. But precious minutes had been
lost in the smoky canopy, that might never be regained. The sea changed
its colour from a dark green to a glittering white; and then the fury
of the gust was heard rushing along the water with fearful rapidity,
and with a violence that could not he resisted.

“Be lively, men!” shouted Bignall himself, in the exigency in which his
vessel was placed; “Roll up the cloth; in with it all—leave not a rag
to the squall! ’Fore George, Mr Wilder, but this wind is not playing
with us; cheer up the men to their work; speak to them cheerily, sir!”

“Furl away!” shouted Wilder. “Cut, if too late, work away with knives
and teeth—down, every man of you, down—down for your lives, all!”

There was that in the voice of the lieutenant which sounded in the ears
of his people like a supernatural cry. He had so recently witnessed a
calamity similar to that which again threatened him, that perhaps his
feelings lent a secret horror to the tones. A score of forms was seen
descending swiftly, through an atmosphere that appeared sensible to the
touch. Nor was their escape, which might be likened to the stooping of
birds that dart into their nest, too earnestly pressed. Stripped of all
its rigging, and already tottering under numerous wounds, the lofty and
overloaded spars yielded to the mighty force of the squall, tumbling in
succession towards the hull, until nothing stood but the three firmer,
but shorn and nearly useless, lower masts. By far the greater number of
those aloft reached the deck in time to insure their safety, though
some there were too stubborn, and still too much under the sullen
influence of the combat, to hearken to the words of warning. These
victims of their own obstinacy were seen clinging to the broken
fragments of the spars, as the “Dart,” in a cloud of foam, drove away
from the spot where they floated, until their persons and their misery
were alike swallowed in the distance.

“It is the hand of God!” hoarsely exclaimed the veteran Bignall, while
his contracting eye drunk in the destruction of the wreck. “Mark me,
Henry Ark; I will forever testify that the guns of the pirate have not
brought us to this condition.”

Little disposed to seek the same miserable consolation as his
Commander, Wilder exerted himself in counteracting, so far as
circumstances would allow, an injury that he felt, however, at that
moment to be irreparable. Amid the howling of the gust, and the fearful
crashing of the thunder, with an atmosphere now lurid with the glare of
lightning, and now nearly obscured by the dark canopy of vapour, and
with all the frightful evidences of the fight still reeking and ghastly
before their eyes, did the crew of the British cruiser prove true to
themselves and to their ancient reputation. The voices of Bignall and
his subordinates were heard in the tempest, uttering those mandates
which long, experience had rendered familiar, or encouraging the people
to their duty. But the strife of the elements was happily of short
continuance The squall soon swept over the spot, leaving the currents
of the trade rushing into their former channels, and a sea that was
rather stilled, than agitated by the counteracting influence of the
winds.

But, as one danger passed away from before the eyes of the mariners of
the “Dart,” another, scarcely less to be apprehended, forced itself
upon their attention, All recollection of the favours of the past, and
every feeling of gratitude, was banished from the mind of Wilder, by
the mountings of powerful professional pride, and that love of glory
which becomes inherent in the warrior, as he gazed on the untouched and
beautiful symmetry of the “Dolphin’s” spars, and all the perfect, and
still underanged, order of her tackle. It seemed as if she bore a
charmed fate, or that some supernatural agency had been instrumental in
preserving her unharmed, amid the violence of a second hurricane. But
cooler thought, and more impartial reflection, compelled the internal
acknowledgment, that the vigilance and wise precautions of the
remarkable individual who appeared not only to govern her movements,
but to control her fortunes, had their proper influence in producing
the result.

Little leisure, however, was allowed to ruminate on these changes, or
to deprecate the advantage of their enemy. The vessel of the Rover had
already opened many broad sheets of canvas; and, as the return of the
regular breeze gave her the wind, her approach was rapid and
unavoidable.

“’Fore George, Mr Ark, luck is all on the dishonest side to-day,” said
the veteran, so soon as he perceived by the direction which the
“Dolphin” took, that the encounter was likely to be renewed. “Send the
people to quarters again, and clear away the guns; for we are likely to
have another bout with the rogues.”

“I would advise a moment’s delay,” Wilder earnestly observed, when he
heard his Commander issuing an order to his people to prepare to
deliver their fire, the instant their enemy should come within a
favourable position. “Let me entreat you to delay; we know not what may
be his present intentions.”

“None shall put foot on the deck of the ‘Dart,’ without submitting to
the authority of her royal master,” returned the stern old tar. “Give
it to him, my men! Scatter the rogues from their guns! and let them
know the danger of approaching a lion, though he should be crippled!”

Wilder saw that remonstrance was now too late for a fresh broadside was
hurled from the “Dart,” to defeat any generous intentions that the
Rover might entertain. The ship of the latter received the iron storm,
while advancing, and immediately deviated gracefully from her course,
in such a way as to prevent its repetition. Then she was seen sweeping
towards the bows of the nearly helpless cruiser of the King, and a
hoarse summons was heard ordering her ensign to be lowered.

“Come on, ye villains!” shouted the excited Bignall “Come, and perform
the office with your own hands!”

The graceful ship, as if sensible herself to the taunts of her enemy,
sprung nigher to the wind, and shot across the fore-foot of the “Dart,”
delivering her fire, gun after gun, with deliberate and deadly
accuracy, full into that defenceless portion of her Antagonist. A crush
like that of meeting bodies followed and then fifty grim visages were
seen entering the scene of carnage, armed with the deadly weapons of
personal conflict. The shock of so close and so fatal a discharge had,
for the moment, paralyzed the efforts of the assailed; but no sooner
did Bignall, and his lieutenant, see the dark forms that issued from
the smoke on their own decks, than, with voices that had not even then
lost their authority each summoned a band of followers, backed by whom,
they bravely dashed into the opposite gang-ways of their ship, to stay
the torrent. The first encounter was fierce and fatal, both parties
receding a little, to wait for succour and recover breath.”

“Come on, ye murderous thieves!” cried the dauntless veteran, who stood
foremost in his own band, conspicuous by the locks of gray that floated
around his naked head, “well do ye know that heaven is with the right!”

The grim freebooters in his front recoiled and opened; then came a
sheet of flame, from the side of the “Dolphin,” through an empty port
of her adversary bearing in its centre a hundred deadly missiles. The
sword of Bignall was flourished furiously and wildly above his head,
and his voice was still heard crying, till the sounds rattled in his
throat,—

“Come on, ye knaves! come on!—Harry—Harry Ark! O God!—Hurrah!”

He fell like a log, and died the unwitting possessor of that very
commission for which he had toiled throughout a life of hardship and
danger. Until now Wilder had made good his quarter of the deck though
pressed by a band as fierce and daring as his own; but, at this fearful
crisis in the combat, a voice was heard in the melee, that thrilled on
all his nerves, and seemed even to carry its fearful influence over the
minds of his men.

“Make way there, make way!” it said, in tones clear, deep, and
breathing with authority, “make way, and follow; no hand but mine shall
lower that vaunting flag!”

“Stand to your faith, my men!” shouted Wilder in reply. Shouts, oaths,
imprecations, and groans formed a fearful accompaniment of the rude
encounter, which was, however, far too violent to continue long. Wilder
saw, with agony, that numbers and impetuosity were sweeping his
supporters from around him. Again and again he called them to the
succour with his voice, or stimulated them to daring by his example.

Friend after friend fell at his feet, until he was driven to the utmost
extremity of the deck. Here he again rallied a little band, against
which several furious charges were made, in vain.

“Ha!” exclaimed a voice he well knew; “death to all traitors! Spit the
spy, as you would a dog! Charge through them, my bullies; a halbert to
the hero who shall reach his heart!”

“Avast, ye lubber!” returned the stern tones of the staunch Richard.
“Here are a white man and a nigger at your service, if you’ve need of a
spit.”

“Two more of the gang!” continued the General aiming a blow that
threatened to immolate the topman as he spoke.

A dark half-naked form was interposed to receive the descending blade,
which fell on the staff of a half-pike and severed it as though it had
been a reed. Nothing daunted by the defenceless state in which he found
himself, Scipio made his way to the front of Wilder, where, with a body
divested to the waist of every garment, and empty handed, he fought
with his brawny arms, like one who despised the cuts, thrusts and
assaults, of which his athletic frame immediately became the helpless
subject.

“Give it to ’em, right and left, Guinea,” cried Fid: “here is one who
will come in as a backer, so soon as he has stopped the grog of the
marine.”

The parries and science of the unfortunate General were at this moment
set at nought, by a blow from Richard, which broke down all his
defences, descending through cap and skull to the jaw.

“Hold, murderers!” cried Wilder, who saw the numberless blows that were
falling on the defenceless body of the still undaunted black. “Strike
here! and spare an unarmed man!”

The sight of our adventurer became confused, for he saw the negro fall,
dragging with him to the deck two of his assailants; and then a voice,
deep as the emotion which such a scene might create, appeared to utter
in the very portals of his ear,—“Our work is done! He that strikes
another blow makes an enemy of me.”




Chapter XXXI.

“Take him hence;
The whole world shall not save him.”

_Cymbeline_


The recent gust had not passed more fearfully and suddenly over the
ship, than the scene just related. But the smiling aspect of the
tranquil sky, and bright sun of the Caribbean sea, found no parallel in
the horrors that succeeded the combat. The momentary confusion which
accompanied the fall of Scipio soon disappeared, and Wilder was left to
gaze on the wreck of all the boasted powers of his cruiser, and on that
waste of human life, which had been the attendants of the struggle. The
former has already been sufficiently described; but a short account of
the present state of the actors may serve to elucidate the events that
are to follow.

Within a few yards of the place he was permitted to occupy himself,
stood the motionless form of the Rover. A second glance was necessary,
however, to recognise, in the grim visage to which the boarding-cap
already mentioned lent a look of artificial ferocity the usually bland
countenance of the individual. As the eye of Wilder roamed over the
swelling, erect, and still triumphant figure, it was difficult not to
fancy that even the stature had been suddenly and unaccountably
increased. One hand rested on the hilt of a yataghan, which, by the
crimson drops that flowed along its curved blade, had evidently done
fatal service in the fray; and one foot was placed, seemingly with
supernatural weight, on that national emblem which it had been his
pride to lower. His eye was wandering sternly, but understandingly,
over the scene, though he spoke not, nor in any other manner betrayed
the deep interest he felt in the past. At his side, and nearly within
the circle of his arm stood the cowering form of the boy Roderick,
unprovided with weapon, his garments sprinkled with blood, his eye
contracted, wild, and fearful, and his face pallid as those in whom the
tide of life had just ceased to circulate.

Here and there, were to be seen the wounded captives still sullen and
unconquered in spirit, while many of their scarcely less fortunate
enemies lay in their blood, around the deck, with such gleamings of
ferocity on their countenances as plainly denoted that the current of
their meditations was still running on vengeance. The uninjured and the
slightly wounded, of both bands, were already pursuing their different
objects of plunder or of secretion.

But, so thorough was the discipline established by the leader of the
freebooters, so absolute his power, that blow had not been struck, nor
blood drawn, since the moment when his prohibitory mandate was heard.
There had been enough of destruction, however to have satisfied their
most gluttonous longings had human life been the sole object of the
assault. Wilder felt many a pang, as the marble-like features of humble
friend or faithful servitor came, one after another, under his
recognition; but the shock was greatest when his eye fell upon the
rigid, and still frowning, countenance of his veteran Commander.

“Captain Heidegger,” he said, struggling to maintain the fortitude
which became the moment; “the fortune of the day is yours: I ask mercy
and kindness in behalf of the survivors.”

“They shall be granted to those who, of right may claim them: I hope it
may be found that all are included in this promise.”

The voice of the Rover was solemn, and full of meaning; and it appeared
to convey more than the simple import of the words. Wilder might have
nursed long and vainly, however, on the equivocal manner in which he
had been answered, had not the approach of a body of the hostile crew,
among whom he instantly recognised the most prominent of the late
mutineers of the “Dolphin,” speedily supplied a clue to the hidden
meaning of their leader.

“We claim the execution of our ancient laws!” sternly commenced the
foremost of the gang, addressing his chief with a brevity and an air of
fierceness which the late combat might well have generated, if not
excused.

“What would you have?”

“The lives of traitors” was the sullen answer.

“You know the conditions of our service. If any such are in our power,
let them meet their fate.”

Had any doubt remained in the mind of Wilder, as to the meaning of
these terrible claimants of justice it would have vanished at the
sullen, ominous manner with which he and his two companions were
immediately dragged before the lawless chief. Though the love of life
was strong and active in his breast, it was not, even in that fearful
moment, exhibited in any deprecating or unmanly form. Not for an
instant did his mind waver, or his thoughts wander to any subterfuge,
that might prove unworthy of his profession or his former character.
One anxious, inquiring look was fastened on the eye of him whose power
alone might save him. He witnessed the short, severe struggle of regret
that softened the rigid muscles of the Rover’s countenance, and then he
saw the instant, cold, and calm composure which settled on every one of
its disciplined lineaments. He knew, at once, that the feelings of the
man were smothered in the duty of the chief, and more was unnecessary
to teach him the utter hopelessness of his condition. Scorning to
render his state degrading by useless remonstrances, the youth remained
where his accusers had seen fit to place him—firm, motionless, and
silent.

“What would’ve have?” the Rover was at length heard to say, in a voice
that even his iron nerves scarce rendered deep and full-toned as
common. “What ask ye?”

“Their lives!”

“I understand you; go; they are at your mercy.”

Notwithstanding the horrors of the scene through which he had just
passed, and that high and lofty excitement which had sustained him
through the fight, the deliberate, solemn tones with which his judge
delivered a sentence that he knew consigned him to a hasty and
ignominious death, shook the frame of our adventurer nearly to
insensibility. The blood recoiled backward to his heart, and the
sickening sensation that beset his brain threatened to up-set his
reason. But the shock passed, on the instant leaving him erect, and
seemingly proud and firm as ever, and certainly with no evidence of
mortal weakness that human eye could discover.

“For myself nothing is demanded,” he said, with admirable steadiness.
“I know your self-enacted laws condemn me to a miserable fate; but for
these ignorant, confiding, faithful followers, I claim, nay beg,
entreat, implore your mercy; they knew not what they did, and”—

“Speak to these!” said the Rover, pointing, with an averted eye, to the
fierce knot by which he was surrounded: “These are your judges, and the
sole ministers of mercy.”

Strong and nearly unconquerable disgust was apparent in the manner of
the youth; but, with a mighty effort, he subdued it, and, turning to
the crew, continued,—

“Then even to these will I humble myself in petitions. Ye are men, and
ye are mariners”—

“Away with him!” exclaimed the croaking Nightingale; “he preaches! away
with him to the yard arm! away!”

The shrill, long-drawn winding of the call which the callous boatswain
sounded in bitter mockery was answered by an echo from twenty voices,
in which the accents of nearly as many different people mingled in
hoarse discordancy, as they shouted,—

“To the yard-arm! away with the three! away!”

Wilder cast a last glance of appeal at the Rover but he met no look, in
return, from a face that was intentionally averted. Then, with a
burning brain he felt himself rudely transferred from the quarter deck
into the centre and less privileged portion of the ship. The violence
of the passage, the hurried reeving of cords, and all the fearful
preparations of a nautical execution, appeared but the business of a
moment, to him who stood so near the verge of time.

“A yellow flag for punishment!” bawled there vengeful captain of the
forecastle; “let the gentle man sail on his last cruise, under the
rogue’s ensign!”

“A yellow flag! a yellow flag!” echoed twenty taunting throats. “Down
with the Rover’s ensign and up with the colours of the prevot-marshal!
A yellow flag! a yellow flag!”

The hoarse laughter, and mocking merriment, with which this coarse
device was received, stirred the ire of Fid, who had submitted in
silence, so far, to the rude treatment he received, for no other reason
than that he thought his superior was the best qualified to utter the
little which it might be necessary to say.

“Avast, ye villains!” he hotly exclaimed, prudence and moderation
losing their influence, under the excitement of scornful anger; “ye
cut-throat, lubberly villains! That ye are villains, is to be proved,
in your teeth, by your getting your sailing orders from the devil; and
that ye are lubbers, any man may see by the fashion in which ye have
rove this cord about my throat. A fine jam will ye make with a turn in
your whip! But ye’ll all come to know how a man is to be decently
hanged, ye rogues, ye will. Ye’ll all come honestly by the knowledge,
in your day, ye will!”

“Clear the turn, and run him up!” shouted one, two, three voices, in
rapid succession; “a clear whip, and a swift run to heaven!”

Happily a fresh burst of riotous clamour, from one of the hatchways,
interrupted the intention; and then was heard the cry of,—

“A priest! a priest! Pipe the rogues to prayers, before they take their
dance on nothing!”

The ferocious laughter with which the freebooters received this
sneering proposal, was hushed as suddenly as though One answered to
their mockery, from that mercy-seat whose power they so sacrilegiously
braved, when a deep, menacing voice was heard in their midst, saying,—

“By heaven, if touch, or look, be laid too boldly on a prisoner in this
ship, he who offends had better beg the fate ye give these miserable
men, than meet my anger. Stand off, I bid you, and let the chaplain
approach!”

Every bold hand was instantly withdrawn, and each profane lip was
closed in trembling silence, giving the terrified and horror-stricken
subject of their liberties room and opportunity to advance to the scene
of punishment.

“See,” said the Rover, in calmer but still deeply authoritative tones;
“you are a minister of God, and your office is sacred charity: If you
have aught to smooth the dying moment to fellow mortal, haste to impart
it!”

“In what have these offended?” demanded the divine, when power was
given to speak.

“No matter; it is enough that their hour is near. If you would lift
your voice in prayer, fear nothing. The unusual sounds shall be welcome
even here. Ay, and these miscreants, who so boldly surround you, shall
kneel, and be mute, as beings whose souls are touched by the holy rite.
Scoffers shall be dumb, and unbelievers respectful, at my beck.—Speak
freely!”

“Scourge of the seas!” commenced the chaplain, across whose pallid
features a flash of holy excitement had cast its glow, “remorseless
violator of the laws of man! audacious contemner of the mandates of
your God! a fearful retribution shall avenge this crime. Is it not
enough that you have this day consigned so many to a sudden end, but
your vengeance must be glutted with more blood? Beware the hour when
these things shall be visited, in almighty power on your own devoted
head!”

“Look!” said the Rover, smiling, but with an expression that was
haggard, in spite of the unnatural exultation that struggled about his
quivering lip, “here are the evidences of the manner in which Heaven
protects the right!”

“Though its awful justice be hidden in inscrutable wisdom for a time,
deceive not thyself; the hour is at hand when it shall be seen and felt
in majesty!”

The voice of the chaplain became suddenly choaked, for his wandering
eye had fallen on the frowning countenance of Bignall, which, set in
death, lay but half concealed beneath that flag which the Rover himself
had cast upon the body. Then, summoning his energies, he continued, in
the clear and admonitory strain that befitted his sacred calling: “They
tell me you are but half lost to feeling for your kind; and, though the
seeds of better principles, of better days, are smothered in your
heart, that they still exist and might be quickened into goodly”

“Peace! You speak in vain. To your duty with these men, or be silent.”

“Is their doom sealed?”

“It is.”

“Who says it?” demanded a low voice at the elbow of the Rover, which,
coming upon his ear at that moment, thrilled upon his most latent
nerve, chasing the blood from his cheek to the secret recesses of his
frame. But the weakness had already passed away with the surprise, as
he calmly, and almost instantly answered,—

“The law.”

“The law!” repeated the governess. “Can they who set all order at
defiance, who despise each human regulation, talk of law! Say, it is
heartless, vindictive vengeance, if you will; but call it not by the
sacred name of law.—I wander from my object! They have told me of this
frightful scene, and I am come to offer ransom for the offenders. Name
your price, and let it be worthy of the subject we redeem; a grateful
parent shall freely give it all for the preserver of his child.”

“If gold will purchase the lives you wish,” the other interrupted, with
the swiftness of thought, “it is here in hoards, and ready on the
moment. What say my people! Will they take ransom?”

A short, brooding pause succeeded; and then a low, ominous murmur was
raised in the throng, announcing their reluctance to dispense with
vengeance. A scornful glance shot from the glowing eye of the Rover,
across the fierce countenances by which he was environed; his lips
moved with vehemence; but, as if he disdained further intercession,
nothing was uttered for the ear. Turning to the divine, he added, with
all the former composure of his wonderful manner,—

“Forget not your sacred office—time is leaving us.” He was then moving
slowly aside, in imitation of the governess, who had already veiled her
features from the revolting scene, when Wilder addressed him.

“For the service you would have done me, from my soul I thank you,” he
said. “If you would know that I leave you in peace, give yet one solemn
assurance before I die.”

“To what?”

“Promise, that they who came with me into your ship shall leave it
unharmed, and speedily.”

“Promise, Walter,” said a solemn, smothered voice, in the throng.

“I do.”

“I ask no more.—Now, Reverend Minister of God, perform thy holy office,
near my companions. Then ignorance may profit by your service. If I
quit this bright and glorious scene, without thought and gratitude to
that Being who, I humbly trust, has made me an heritor of still greater
things, I offend wittingly and without hope. But these may find
consolation in your prayers.”

Amid an awful and breathing silence, the chaplain approached the
devoted companions of Wilder. Their comparative insignificance had left
them unobserved during most of the foregoing scene; and material
changes had occurred, unheeded, in their situation. Fid was seated on
the deck, his collar unbuttoned, his neck encircled with the fatal
cord, sustaining the head of the nearly helpless black, which he had
placed, with singular tenderness and care, in his lap.

“This man, at least, will disappoint the malice of his enemies,” said
the divine, taking the hard hand of the negro into his own; “the
termination of his wrongs and his degradation approaches; he will soon
be far beyond the reach of human injustice.—Friend, by what name is
your companion known?”

“It is little matter how you hail a dying man,” returned Richard, with
at melancholy shake of the head. “He has commonly been entered on the
ship’s books as Scipio Africa, coming, as he did, from the coast of
Guinea; but, if you call him S’ip, he will not be slow to understand.”

“Has he known baptism? Is he a Christian?”

“If he be not, I don’t know who the devil is!” responded Richard, with
an asperity that might be deemed a little unseasonable. “A man who
serves his country, is true to his messmate, and has no skulk about
him, I call a saint, so far as mere religion goes. I say, Guinea, my
hearty, give the chaplain a gripe of the fist, if you call yourself a
Christian. A Spanish windlass wouldn’t give a stronger screw than the
knuckles of that nigger an hour ago; and, now, you see to what a giant
may be brought.”

“His latter moment is indeed near. Shall I offer a prayer for the
health of the departing spirit?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” answered Fid, gulping his words, and
uttering a hem, that was still deep and powerful, as in the brightest
and happiest of his days. “When there is so little time given to a poor
fellow to speak his mind in, it may be well to let him have a chance to
do most of the talking. Something may come uppermost which he would
like to send to his friends in Africa; in which case, we may as well be
looking out for a proper messenger. Hah! what is it, boy? You see he is
already trying to rowse something up out of his ideas.”

“Misser Fid—he’m take a collar,” said the black, struggling for
utterance.

“Ay, ay,” returned Richard, again clearing his throat, and looking to
the right and left fiercely, as if he were seeking some object on which
to wreak his vengeance. “Ay, ay, Guinea; put your mind at ease on that
point, and for that matter on all others. You shall have a grave as
deep as the sea, and Christian burial, boy, if this here parson will
stand by his work. Any small message you may have for your friends
shall be logg’d, and put in the way of coming to their ears. You have
had much foul weather in your time, Guinea, and some squalls have
whistled about your head, that might have been spaced, mayhap, had your
colour been a shade or two lighter. For that matter, it may be that I
have rode you down a little too close myself, boy, when over-heated
with the conceit of skin; for all which may the Lord forgive me as
freely as I hope you will do the same thing!”

The negro made a fruitless effort to rise, endeavouring to grasp the
hand of the other, saying, as he did so,—

“Misser Fid beg a pardon of a black man! Masser aloft forget he’m all,
misser Richard; he t’ink ’em no more.”

“It will be what I call a d——’d generous thing, if he does,” returned
Richard, whose sorrow and whose conscience had stirred up his uncouth
feelings to an extraordinary degree. “There’s the affair of slipping
off the wreck of the smuggler has never been properly settled atween
us, neither; and many other small services of like nature, for which,
d’ye see, I’ll just thank you, while there is opportunity; for no one
can say whether we shall ever be borne again on the same ship’s books.”

A feeble sign from his companion caused the topman to pause, while he
endeavoured to construe its meaning as well as he was able. With a
facility, that was in some degree owing to the character of the
individual his construction of the other’s meaning was favourable to
himself, as was quite evident by the manner in which he resumed,—

“Well, well, mayhap we may. I suppose they birth the people there in
some such order as is done here below, in which case we may be put
within hailing distance, after all. Our sailing orders are both signed;
though, as you seem likely to slip your cable before these thieves are
ready to run me up, you will be getting the best of the wind. I shall
not say much concerning any signals it may be necessary to make, in
order to make one another out aloft taking it for granted that you will
not overlook master Harry, on account of the small advantage you may
have in being the first to shove off, intending myself to keep as close
as possible in his wake, which will give me the twofold advantage of
knowing I am on the right tack, and of falling in with you”—

“These are evil words, and fatal alike to your own future peace, and to
that of your unfortunate friend,” interrupted the divine. “His reliance
must be placed on One, different in all his attributes from your
officer, to follow whom, or to consult whose frail conduct, would be
the height of madness. Place your faith on another”——

“If I do, may I be——”

“Peace,” said Wilder. “The black would speak to me.”

Scipio had turned his looks in the direction of his officer, and was
making another feeble effort towards extending his hand. As Wilder
placed the member within the grasp of the dying negro, the latter
succeeded in laying it on his lips, and then, flourishing with a
convulsive movement that herculean arm which he had so lately and so
successfully brandished in defence of his master, the limb stiffened
and fell, though the eyes still continued their affectionate and
glaring gaze on that countenance he had so long loved, and which, in
the midst of all his long-endured wrongs, had never refused to meet his
look of love in kindness. A low murmur followed this scene, and then
complaints succeeded, in a louder strain, till more than one voice was
heard openly muttering its discontent that vengeance should be so long
delayed.

“Away with them!” shouted an ill-omened voice from the throng. “Into
the sea with the carcass, and up with the living.”

“Avast!” burst out of the chest of Fid, with an awfulness and depth
that stayed even the daring; movements of that lawless moment. “Who
dare to cast a seaman into the brine, with the dying look standing in
his lights, and his last words still in his messmate’s ears? Ha! would
ye stopper the fins of a man as ye would pin a lobster’s claw! That for
your fastenings and your lubberly knots together!” The excited topman
snapped the lines by which his elbows had been imperfectly secured,
while speaking and immediately lashed the body of the black to his own,
though his words received no interruption from a process that was
executed with all a seaman’s dexterity. “Where was the man in your
lubberly crew that could lay upon a yard with this here black, or haul
upon a lee-earing, while he held the weather-line? Could any one of ye
all give up his rations, in order that a sick messmate might fare the
better? or work a double tide, to spare the weak arm of a friend? Show
me one who had as little dodge under fire, as a sound mainmast, and I
will show you all that is left of his better. And now sway upon your
whip, and thank God that the honest end goes up, while the rogues are
suffered to keep their footing for a time.”

“Sway away!” echoed Nightingale, seconding the hoarse sounds of his
voice by the winding of his call; “away with them to heaven.”

“Hold!” exclaimed the chaplain, happily arresting the cord before it
had yet done its fatal office. “For His sake, whose mercy may one day
be needed by the most hardened of ye all, give but another moment of
time! What mean these words! read I aright? ‘Ark, of Lynnhaven!’”

“Ay, ay,” said Richard, loosening the rope a little, in order to speak
with greater freedom, and transferring the last morsel of the weed from
his box to his mouth, as he answered; “seeing you are an apt scholar,
no wonder you make it out so easily, though written by a hand that was
always better with a marling-spike than a quill.”

“But whence came the words? and why do you bear those names, thus
written indelibly in the skin? Patience, men! monsters! demons! Would
ye deprive the dying man of even a minute of that precious time which
becomes so dear to all, as life is leaving us?”

“Give yet another minute!” said a deep voice from behind.

“Whence come the words, I ask?” again the chaplain demanded.

“They are neither more nor less than the manner in which a circumstance
was logged, which is now of no consequence, seeing that the cruise is
nearly up with all who are chiefly concerned. The black spoke of the
collar; but, then, he thought I might be staying in port, while he was
drifting between heaven and earth, in search of his last moorings.”

“Is there aught, here, that I should know?” interrupted the eager,
tremulous voice of Mrs Wyllys. “O Merton! why these questions? Has my
yearning been prophetic? Does nature give so mysterious a warning of
its claim!”

“Hush, dearest Madam! your thoughts wander from probabilities, and my
faculties become confused.—‘Ark, of Lynnhaven,’ was the name of an
estate in the islands, belonging to a near and dear friend, and it was
the place where I received, and whence I sent to the main, the precious
trust you confided to my care. But”——

“Say on!” exclaimed the lady, rushing madly in front of Wilder, and
seizing the cord which, a moment before, had been tightened nearly to
his destruction stripping it from his throat, with a sort of
supernatural dexterity: “It was not, then, the name of a ship?”

“A ship! surely not. But what mean these hopes?—these fears?”

“The collar? the collar? speak; what of that collar?”

“It means no great things, now, my Lady,” returned Fid, very coolly
placing himself in the same condition as Wilder, by profiting by the
liberty of his arms, and loosening his own neck from the halter,
notwithstanding a movement made by some of the people to prevent it,
which was, however, staid by a look from their leader’s eyes. “I will
first cast loose this here rope; seeing that it is neither decent, nor
safe, for an ignorant man, like me, to enter into such unknown
navigation, a-head of his officer. The collar was just the necklace of
the dog, which is here to be seen on the arm of poor Guinea, who was,
in most respects, a man for whose equal one might long look in vain.”

“Read it,” said the governess, a film passing before her own eyes;
“read it,” she added, motioning, with a quivering hand, to the divine
to peruse the inscription, that was distinctly legible on the plate of
brass.

“Holy Dispenser of good! what is this I see? ‘Neptune, the property of
Paul de Lacey!’”

A loud cry burst from the lips of the governess; her hands were clasped
one single instant upward, in that thanksgiving which oppressed her
soul, and then, as recollection returned, Wilder was pressed fondly,
frantickly to her bosom, while her voice was neard to say, in the
piercing tones of all-powerful nature,—

“My child! my child!—You will not—cannot—dare not, rob a long-stricken
and bereaved mother of her offspring. Give me back my son, my noble
son! and I will weary Heaven with prayers in your behalf. Ye are brave,
and cannot be deaf to mercy. Ye are men, who have lived in constant
view of God’s majesty, and will not refuse to listen to this evidence
of his pleasure. Give me my child, and I yield all else. He is of a
race long honoured upon the seas, and no mariner will be deaf to his
claims. The widow of de Lacey, the daughter of ——— cries for mercy.
Their united blood is in his veins, and it will not be spilt by you! A
mother bows herself to the dust before you, to ask mercy for her
offspring. Oh! give me my child! my child!”

As the words of the petitioner died upon the ear a stillness settled on
the place, that might have been likened to the holy calm which the
entrance of better feelings leaves upon the soul of the sinner. The
grim freebooters regarded each other in doubt; the workings of nature
manifesting themselves in the gleamings of even their stern and
hardened visages. Still, the desire for vengeance had got too firm a
hold of their minds to be dispossessed at a word. The result would vet
have been doubtful, had not one suddenly re-appeared in their midst who
never ordered in vain; and who knew how to guide, to quell, or to mount
and trample on their humours, as his own pleasure dictated. For half a
minute, he looked around him, his eye still following the circle, which
receded as he gazed, until even those longest accustomed to yield to
his will began to wonder at the extraordinary aspect in which it was
now exhibited. The gaze was wild and bewildered; and the face pallid as
that of the petitioning mother. Three times did the lips sever, before
sound issued from the caverns of his chest; then arose, on the
attentive ears of the breathless and listening crowd, a voice that
seemed equally charged with inward emotion and high authority. With a
haughty gesture of the hand, and a manner that was too well understood
to be mistaken, he said,—

“Disperse! Ye know my justice; but ye know I will be obeyed. My
pleasure shall be known tomorrow.”




Chapter XXXII.

“This is he;
Who hath upon him still that natural stamp:
It was wise Nature’s end in the donation,
To be his evidence now.”

_Shakespeare._


That morrow came; and, with it, an entire change, in the scene and
character of our tale. The “Dolphin” and the “Dart” were sailing in
amity, side by side; the latter again bearing the ensign of England,
and the former carrying a naked gaff. The injuries of the gust, and the
combat, had so far been repaired, that, to a common eye, each gallant
vessel was again prepared, equally to encounter the hazards of the
ocean or of warfare. A long, blue, hazy streak, to the north,
proclaimed the proximity of the land; and some three or four light
coasters of that region, which were sailing nigh, announced how little
of hostility existed in the present purposes of the freebooters.

What those designs were, however, still remained a secret, buried in
the bosom of the Rover alone.

Doubt, wonder, and distrust were, each in its turn, to be traced, not
only in the features of his captives, but in those of his own crew.
Throughout the whole of the long night, which had succeeded the events
of the important day just past, he had been seen to pace the poop in
brooding silence. The little he had uttered was merely to direct the
movements of the vessel; and when any ventured, with other design, to
approach his person, a sign, that none there dared to disregard,
secured him the solitude he wished. Once or twice, indeed, the boy
Roderick was seen hovering at his elbow, but it was as a guardian
spirit would be fancied to linger near the object of its care,
unobtrusively, and, it might almost be added, invisible. When, however,
the sun came burnished and glorious, out of the waters of the east a
gun was fired, to bring a coaster to the side of the “Dolphin;” and
then it seemed that the curtain was to be raised on the closing scene
of the drama. With his crew assembled on the deck beneath, and the
principal personages among his captives beside him on the poop, the
Rover addressed the former.

“Years have united us by a common fortune,” he said: “We have long been
submissive to the same laws. If I have been prompt to punish, I have
been ready to obey. You cannot charge me with injustice. But the
covenant is now ended. I take back my pledge, and I return you your
faiths. Nay, frown not—hesitate not—murmur not! The compact ceases and
our laws are ended. Such were the conditions of the service. I give you
your liberty, and little do I claim in return. That you need have no
grounds of reproach, I bestow my treasure. See,” he added, raising that
bloody ensign with which he had so often braved the power of the
nations, and exhibiting beneath it sacks of that metal which has so
long governed the world; “see! This was mine; it is now yours. It shall
be put in yonder coaster: there I leave you, to bestow it, yourselves,
on those you may deem most worthy. Go; the land is near. Disperse, for
your own sakes: Nor hesitate; for, without me, well do ye know that
vessel of the King would be your master. The ship is already mine, of
all the rest, I claim these prisoners alone for my portion. Farewell!”

Silent amazement succeeded this unlooked-for address. There was,
indeed, for a moment, some disposition to rebel; but the measures of
the Rover had been too well taken for resistance. The “Dart” lay on
their beam, with her people at their guns, matches lighted, and a heavy
battery. Unprepared, without a leader, and surprised, opposition would
have been madness. The first astonishment had scarce abated, before
each freebooter rushed to secure his individual effects, and to
transfer them to the deck of the coaster. When all but the crew of a
single boat had left the “Dolphin,” the promised gold was sent, and
then the loaded craft was seen hastily seeking the shelter of some
secret creek. During this scene, the Rover had again been silent as
death. He next turned to Wilder; and, making a mighty but successful
effort to still his feelings, he added,—

“Now must we, too, part. I commend my wounded to your care. They are
necessarily with your surgeons. I know the trust I give you will not be
abused.”

“My word is the pledge of their safety,” returned the young de Lacey.

“I believe you.—Lady,” he added, approaching the elder of the females,
with an air in which earnestness and hesitation strongly contended, “if
a proscribed and guilty man may still address you, grant yet a favour.”

“Name it; a mother’s ear can never be deaf to him who has spared her
child.”

“When you petition Heaven for that child, then forget not there is
another being who may still profit by your prayers!—No more.—And now,”
he continued looking about him like one who was determined to be equal
to the pang of the moment, however difficult it might prove, and
surveying, with an eye of painful regret, those naked decks which were
so lately teeming with scenes of life and revelry; “and now—ay—now we
part! The boat awaits you.”

Wilder had soon seen his mother and Gertrude into the pinnace; but he
still lingered on the deck himself.

“And you!” he said, “what will become of you?”

“I shall shortly be—forgotten.—Adieu!”

The manner in which the Rover spoke forbade delay. The young man
hesitated, squeezed his hand, and left him.

When Wilder found himself restored to his proper vessel, of which the
death of Bignall had left him in command, he immediately issued the
order to fill her sails, and to steer for the nearest haven of his
country. So long as sight could read the movements of the man who
remained on the decks of the “Dolphin” not a look was averted from the
still motionless object. She lay, with her maintop-sail to the mast,
stationary as some beautiful fabric placed there by fairy power, still
lovely in her proportions, and perfect in all her parts. A human form
was seen swiftly pacing her poop, and, by its side, glided one who
looked like a lessened shadow of that restless figure. At length
distance swallowed these indistinct images; and then the eye was
wearied, in vain, to trace the internal movements of the distant ship
But doubt was soon ended. Suddenly a streak of flame flashed from her
decks, springing fiercely from sail to sail. A vast cloud of smoke
broke out of the hull, and then came the deadened roar of artillery. To
this succeeded, for a time, the awful, and yet attractive spectacle of
a burning ship. The whole was terminated by an immense canopy of smoke,
and an explosion that caused the sails of the distant “Dart” to waver,
as though the winds of the trades were deserting their eternal
direction. When the cloud had lifted from the ocean, an empty waste of
water was seen beneath; and none might mark the spot where so lately
had floated that beautiful specimen of human ingenuity. Some of those
who ascended to the upper masts of the cruiser, and were aided by
glasses, believed, indeed, they could discern a solitary speck upon the
sea; but whether it was a boat, or some fragment of the wreck, was
never known.

From that time, the history of the dreaded Red Rover became gradually
lost, in the fresher incidents of those eventful seas. But the mariner,
long after was known to shorten the watches of the night, by recounting
scenes of mad enterprise that were thought to have occurred under his
auspices. Rumour did not fail to embellish and pervert them, until the
real character, and even name, of the individual were confounded with
the actors of other atrocities. Scenes of higher and more ennobling
interest, too, were occurring on the Western Continent, to efface the
circumstances of a legend that many deemed wild and improbable. The
British colonies of North America had revolted against the government
of the Crown, and a weary war was bringing the contest to a successful
issue. Newport, the opening scene of this tale, had been successively
occupied by the arms of the King, and by those of that monarch who had
sent the chivalry of his nation to aid in stripping his rival of her
vast possessions.

The beautiful haven had sheltered hostile fleets, and the peaceful
villas had often rung with the merriment of youthful soldiers. More
than twenty years, after the events just related, had been added to the
long record of time, when the island town witnessed the rejoicings of
another festival. The allied forces had compelled the most enterprising
leader of the British troops to yield himself and army captives to
their numbers and skill. The struggle was believed to be over, and the
worthy townsmen had, as usual, been loud in the manifestations of their
pleasure. The rejoicings, however, ceased with the day; and as night
gathered over the place, the little city was resuming its customary
provincial tranquillity. A gallant frigate, which lay in the very spot
where the vessel of the Rover has first been seen, had already lowered
the gay assemblage of friendly ensigns, which had been spread in the
usual order of a gala day. A flag of intermingled colours, and bearing
a constellation of bright and rising stars, alone was floating at her
gaff. Just at this moment, another cruiser, but one of far less
magnitude, was seen entering the roadstead, bearing also the friendly
ensign of the new States. Headed by the tide, and deserted by the
breeze, she soon dropped an anchor, in the pass between Connanicut and
Rhodes, when a boat was seen making for the inner harbour, impelled by
the arms of six powerful rowers. As the barge approached a retired and
lonely wharf, a solitary observer of its movements was enabled to see
that it contained a curtained litter, and a single female form. Before
the curiosity which such a sight would be apt to create, in the breast
of one like the spectator mentioned, had time to exercise itself in
conjectures, the oars were tossed, the boat had touched the piles, and,
borne by the seamen, the litter, attended by the woman, stood before
him.

“Tell me, I pray you,” said a voice, in whose tones grief and
resignation were singularly combined, “if Captain Henry de Lacey, of
the continental marine, has a residence in this town of Newport?”

“That has he,” answered the aged man addressed by the female; “that has
he; or, as one might say, two; since yonder frigate is no less his than
the dwelling on the hill, just by.”

“Thou art too old to point us out the way; but, if grandchild, or idler
of any sort, be near, here is silver to reward him.”

“Lord help you, Lady!” returned the other, casting an oblique glance at
her appearance, as a sort of salvo for the term, and pocketing the
trifling piece she offered, with singular care; “Lord help you, Madam!
old though I am, and something worn down by hardships and marvellous
adventures, both by sea land, yet will I gladly do so small an office
for one of your condition. Follow, and you shall see that your pilot is
not altogether unused to the path.”

The old man turned, and was leading the way off the wharf, even before
he had completed the assurance of his boasted ability. The seamen and
the female followed; the latter walking sorrowfully and in silence by
the side of the litter.

“If you have need of refreshment,” said their guide, pointing over his
shoulder, “yonder is a well known inn, and one much frequented in its
time by mariners. Neighbour Joram and the ‘Foul Anchor’ have had a
reputation in their day, as well as the greatest warrior in the land;
and, though honest Joe is gathered-in for the general harvest, the
house stands as firm as the day he first entered it. A goodly end he
made, and profitable is it to the weak-minded sinner to keep such an
example before his eyes!”

A low, smothered sound issued from the litter but, though the guide
stopped to listen, it was succeeded by no other evidence of the
character of its tenant.

“The sick man is in suffering,” he resumed; “but bodily pain, and all
afflictions which we suffer in the flesh, must have their allotted
time. I have lived to see seven bloody and cruel wars, of which this,
which now rages, is, I humbly trust, to be the last. Of the wonders
which I witnessed, and the bodily dangers which I compassed, in the
sixth, eye hath never beheld, nor can tongue utter, their equal!”

“Time hath dealt hardly by you, friend,” meekly interrupted the female.
“This gold may add a few more comfortable days to those that are
already past.”

The cripple, for their conductor was lame as well as aged, received the
offering with gratitude, apparently too much occupied in estimating its
amount, to give any more of his immediate attention to the discourse.
In the deep silence that succeeded, the party reached the door of the
villa they sought.

It was now night; the short twilight of the season having disappeared,
while the bearers of the litter had been ascending the hill. A loud rap
was given on the door by the guide; and then he was told that his
services were no longer needed.

“I have seen much and hard service,” he replied, “and well do I know
that the prudent manner does not dismiss the pilot, until the ship is
safely moored. Perhaps old Madam de Lacey is abroad, or the Captain
himself may not”——

“Enough; here is one who will answer all our questions.”

The portal was now, in truth, opened; and a man appeared on its
threshold, holding a light. The appearance of the porter was not,
however, of the most encouraging aspect. A certain air, which can
neither be assumed nor gotten rid of, proclaimed him a son of the
ocean, while a wooden limb, which served to prop a portion of his still
square and athletic body, sufficiently proved he was one who had not
attained the experience of his hardy calling without some bodily risk.
His countenance, as he held the light above his head, in order to scan
the persons of the groupe without, was dogmatic, scowling, and a little
fierce. He was not long, however, in recognizing the cripple, of whom
he unceremoniously demanded the object of what he was pleased to term
“such a night squall.”

“Here is a wounded mariner,” returned the female with tones so
tremulous that they instantly softened the heart of the nautical
Cerberus, “who is come to claim hospitality of a brother in the
service; and shelter for the night. We would speak with Captain Henry
de Lacey.”

“Then you have struck soundings on the right coast, Madam,” returned
the tar, “as master Paul here, will say in the name of his father, no
less than in that of the sweet lady his mother; not forgetting old
madam his grandam, who is no fresh-water fish herself, for that
matter.”

“That he will,” said a fine, manly youth of some seventeen years, who
wore the attire of one who was already in training for the seas, and
who was looking curiously over the shoulder of the elderly seaman. “I
will acquaint my father of the visit, and, Richard—do you seek out a
proper birth for our guests, without delay.”

This order, which was given with the air of one who had been accustomed
to act for himself, and to speak with authority, was instantly obeyed.
The apartment, selected by Richard, was the ordinary parlour of the
dwelling. Here, in a few moments, the litter was deposited; the bearers
were then dismissed and the female only was left, with its tenant and
the rude attendant, who had not hesitated to give them so frank a
reception. The latter busied himself in trimming the lights, and in
replenishing a bright wood fire; taking care, at the same time, that no
unnecessary vacuum should occur in the discourse, to render the brief
interval, necessary for the appearance of his superiors, tedious.
During this state of things an inner door was opened, the youth already
named leading the way for the three principal personages of the
mansion.

First came a middle-aged, athletic man, in the naval undress of a
Captain of the new States. His look was calm, and his step was still
firm, though time and exposure were beginning to sprinkle his head with
gray. He wore one arm in a sling, a proof that his service was still
recent; on the other leaned a lady, in whose matronly mien, but still
blooming cheek and bright eyes, were to be traced most of the ripened
beauties of her sex. Behind them followed a third, a female also, whose
step was less elastic but whose person continued to exhibit the
evidences of a peaceful evening to the troubled day of life. The three
courteously saluted the stranger, delicately refraining from making any
precipitate allusion to the motive of her visit. Their reserve seemed
necessary; for, by the agitation which shook the shattered frame of one
who appeared as much sinking with grief as infirmity, it was too
apparent that the unknown lady needed a little time to collect her
energies and to arrange her thoughts.

She wept long and bitterly, as though alone; nor did she essay to speak
until further silence would have become suspicious. Then, drying her
eyes, and with cheeks on which a bright, hectic spot was seated, her
voice was heard for the first time by her wondering hosts.

“You may deem this visit an intrusion,” she said; “but one, whose will
is my law, would be brought hither.”

“Wherefore?” asked the officer, with mildness, observing that her voice
was already choaked.

“To die!” was the whispered, husky answer.

A common start manifested the surprise of her auditors; and then the
gentleman arose, and approaching the litter, he gently drew aside a
curtain, exposing its hitherto unseen tenant to the examination of all
in the room. There was understanding in the look that met his gaze,
though death was but too plainly stamped on the pallid lineaments of
the wounded man. His eye alone seemed still to belong to earth; for,
while all around it appeared already to be sunk into the helplessness
of the last stage of human debility that was still bright, intelligent,
and glowing—might almost have been described as glaring.

“Is there aught in which we can contribute to your comfort, or to your
wishes?” asked Captain de Lacey, after a long and solemn pause, during
which all around the litter had mournfully contemplated the sad
spectacle of sinking mortality.

The smile of the dying man was ghastly, though tenderness and sorrow
were singularly and fearfully combined in its expression. He answered
not; but his eyes had wandered from face to face, until they became
riveted, by a species of charm, on the countenance of the oldest of the
two females. His gaze was met by a look as settled as his own; and so
evident was the powerful sympathy which existed between the two, that
it could not escape the observation of the spectators.

“Mother!” said the officer, with affectionate concern; “my mother! what
troubles you?”

“Henry—Gertrude,” answered the venerable parent extending her arms to
her offspring, as if she asked support; “my children, your doors have
been opened to one who has a claim to enter them. Oh! it is in these
terrible moments, when passion is asleep and our weakness is most
apparent, in these moments of debility and disease, that nature so
strongly manifests its impression! I see it all in that fading
countenance, in those sunken features, where so little is left but the
last lingering look of family and kindred!”

“Kindred!” exclaimed Captain de Lacey: “Of what affinity is our guest?”

“A brother!” answered the lady, dropping her head on her bosom, as
though she had proclaimed a degree of consanguinity which gave pain no
less than pleasure.

The stranger, too much overcome himself to speak, made a joyful gesture
of assent, but never averted a gaze that seemed destined to maintain
its direction so long as life should lend it intelligence.

“A brother!” repeated her son, in unfeigned astonishment. “I knew you
had a brother: but I had thought him dead a boy.”

“’Twas so I long believed, myself; though frightful glimpses of the
contrary have often beset me; but now the truth is too plain, in that
fading visage and those fallen features, to be misunderstood. Poverty
and misfortune divided us. I suppose we thought each other dead.”

Another feeble gesture proclaimed the assent of the wounded man.

“There is no further mystery. Henry, the stranger is thy uncle—my
brother—once my pupil!”

“I could wish to see him under happier circumstances,” returned the
officer, with a seaman’s frankness; “but, as a kinsman, he is welcome.
Poverty, at least, shall no longer divide you.”

“Look, Henry—Gertrude!” added the mother, veiling her own eyes as she
spoke, “that face is no stranger to you. See ye not the sad ruins of
one ye both fear and love?”

Wonder kept her children mute, though both looked until sight became
confused, so long and intense was their examination. Then a hollow
sound, which came from the chest of the stranger, caused them both to
start; and, as his low, but distinct enunciation rose on their ears,
doubt and perplexity vanished.

“Wilder,” he said, with an effort in which his utmost strength appeared
exerted, “I have come to ask the last office at your hands.”

“Captain Heidegger!” exclaimed the officer.

“The Red Rover!” murmured the younger Mrs. de Lacey, involuntarily
recoiling a pace from the litter in alarm.

“The Red Rover!” repeated her son, pressing nigher with ungovernable
curiosity.

“Laid by the heels at last!” bluntly observed Fid stumping up towards
the groupe, without relinquishing the tongs, which he had kept in
constant use, as an apology for remaining in the presence.

“I had long hid my repentance, and my shame, together,” continued the
dying man, when the momentary surprise had a little abated; “but this
war drew me from my concealment. Our country needed us both, and both
has she had! You have served as one who never offended might serve; but
a cause so holy was not to be tarnished by a name like mine. May the
little I have done for good be remembered when the world speaks of the
evil of my hands! Sister—mother—pardon!”

“May that God, who forms his creatures with such fearful natures, look
mercifully on all our weaknesses!” exclaimed the weeping Mrs de Lacey,
bowing to her knees, and lifting her hands and eyes to heaven “O
brother, brother! you have been trained in the holy mystery of your
redemption, and need not now be told on what Rock to place your hopes
of pardon!”

“Had I never forgotten those precepts, my name would still be known
with honour. But, Wilder!” he added with startling energy, “Wilder!—”

All eyes were bent eagerly on the speaker. His hand was holding a roll
on which he had been reposing as on a pillow. With a supernatural
effort, his form arose on the litter; and, with both hands elevated
above his head, he let fall before him that blazonry of intermingled
stripes, with its blue field of rising stars, a glow of high exultation
illumining each feature of his face, as in his former day of pride.

“Wilder!” he repeated, laughing hysterically, “we have triumphed!”—Then
he fell backward, without motion, the exulting lineaments settling in
the gloom of death, as shadows obscure the smiling brightness of the
sun.

The End.




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