In Clive's Command: A Story of the Fight for India

by Herbert Strang

  Chapter 9: In which the Good Intent makes a running fight:Mr. Toley makes a suggestion.

  Making good sailing, the Good Intent reached Saldanhas Bay, where she putin for a few necessary repairs, then safely rounded the Cape, and after ashort stay at Johanna, one of the Comoro Islands, taking in freshprovisions there, set sail for the Malabar coast. The wind blew steadilyfrom the southwest, and she ran merrily before it.

  During this part of the voyage Desmond found his position somewhatimproved. His pluck had won the rough admiration of the men; CaptainBarker was not so constantly chevying him; and Mr. Toley showed a moreactive interest in him, teaching him the use of the sextant and quadrant,how to take the altitude of the sun, and many other matters important innavigation.

  It was the third week of April, and the monsoon having begun, CaptainBarker expected before long to sight the Indian coast. One morning, abouttwo bells, the lookout reported a small vessel on the larboard bow,laboring heavily. The captain took a long look at it through hisperspective glass, and made out that it was a two-masted grab; themainmast was gone.

  "Odds bobs," he said to Mr. Toley, "'tis strange to meet a grab so farout at sea. We'll run down to it."

  "What is a grab?" asked Desmond of Bulger, when the news had circulatedthrough the ship's company.

  "Why, that's a grab, sure enough. I en't a good hand at pictur' paintin';we're runnin' square for the critter, and then you'll see for yourself.This I'll say, that you don't see 'em anywheres in partickler but off theMalabar coast."

  Desmond was soon able to take stock of the vessel. It was broad inproportion to its length, narrowing from the middle to the end, andhaving a projecting prow like the old-fashioned galleys of which he hadseen pictures. The prow was covered with a deck, level with the main deckof the vessel, but with a bulkhead between this and the forecastle.

  "En't she pitchin'!" remarked Bulger, standing by Desmond's side. "Youcouldn't expect nothing else of a craft built that shape. Look at thewater pourin' off her; why, I may be wrong, but I'll lay my best breechesshe's a-founderin'."

  As usual, Bulger was right. When the grab was overhauled, the men onboard, dark-skinned Marathas with very scanty clothing, made signs thatthey were in distress.

  "Throw her into the wind," shouted the captain.

  Mr. Toley at the wheel put the helm down, the longboat was lowered, andwith some difficulty, owing to the heavy sea, the thirty men on the grabwere taken off. As they came aboard the Good Intent, Diggle, who wasleaning over the bulwarks, suddenly straightened himself, smiled, andmoved towards the taffrail. One of the newcomers, a fine muscular fellow,seeing Diggle approaching, stood for a moment in surprise, then salaamed.The Englishman said something in the stranger's tongue, and grasped hishand with the familiarity of old friendship.

  "You know the man, Mr. Diggle?" said the captain.

  "Yes, truly. The Gentoos and I are in a sense comrades in arms. His nameis Hybati; he's a Maratha."

  "What's he jabbering about?"

  The man was talking rapidly and earnestly.

  "He says, captain," returned Diggle, with a smile, "that he hopes youwill send and fetch the crew's rice on board. They won't eat ourfood--afraid of losing caste."

  "I'll be hang if I launch the longboat again. The grab won't live anotherfive minutes in this sea, and I wouldn't risk two of my crew against ahundred of these dirty Moors."

  "They'll starve otherwise, captain."

  "Well, let 'em starve. I won't have any nonsense aboard my ship. Beggarsmustn't be choosers, and if the heathen can't eat good honest Englishvittles they don't deserve to eat at all."

  Diggle smiled and explained to Hybati that his provisions must be left totheir fate. Even as he spoke a heavy sea struck the vessel athwart, and,amid cries from the Marathas she keeled over and sank.

  When the strangers had dried themselves, Diggle inquired of Hybati how hecame to be in his present predicament. The Maratha explained that he hadbeen in command of Angria's fortress of Suwarndrug, which was so strongthat he had believed it able to withstand any attacks. But one day anumber of vessels of the East India Company's fleet had appeared betweenthe mainland and the island on which the fortress was situated, and hadbegun a bombardment which soon reduced the parapets to ruins. The chiefdamage had been done by an English ship. Hybati and his men had made thebest defense they could, but the gunners were shot down by musket firefrom the round tops of the enemy, and when a shell set fire to a thatchedhouse within the fort, the garrison were too much alarmed to attempt toextinguish the flames; the blaze spread, a powder magazine blew up, andthe inhabitants, with the greater part of the soldiers, fled to theshore, and tried to make their escape in eight large boats. Hybati hadkept up the fight for some time longer, hoping to receive succor; butunder cover of the fire of the ships the English commodore landed halfhis seamen, who rushed up to the gate, and cutting down the sally portwith their axes forced their way in.

  Seeing that the game was up, Hybati fled with thirty of his men, and waslucky in pushing off in the grab, unobserved by the enemy. The winds,however, proving contrary, the vessel had been blown northward along thecoast and then driven far out to sea. With the breaking of the monsoon aviolent squall had dismasted the grab and shattered her bulkhead; she wascontinually shipping water, and, as the sahib saw, was at the point ofsinking when the English ship came up.

  Such was the Maratha's story, as by and by it became common property onboard the Good Intent. Of all the crew Desmond was perhaps the mostinterested. To the others there was nothing novel in the sight of theIndians; but to him they stood for romance, the embodiment of all thetales he had heard and all the dreams he had dreamed of this wonderfulcountry in the East. He was now assured that he was actually within reachof his desired haven; and he hoped shortly to see an end of thedisappointments and hardships, the toils and distresses, of the pastseven months.

  He was eager to learn more of these Marathas, and their fortress, and thecircumstances of the recent fight. Bulger was willing to tell all heknew; but his information was not very exact, and Desmond did not hearthe full story till long after.

  The Malabar coast had long been the haunt of Maratha pirates, whointerfered greatly with the native trade between India and Arabia andPersia. In defense of the interests of his Mohammedan subjects the Mogulemperor at length, in the early part of the eighteenth century, fittedout a fleet, under the command of an admiral known as the Sidi. But therehappened to be among the Marathas at that time a warrior of great daringand resource, one Kunaji Angria. This man first defeated the Sidi, then,in the insolence of victory, revolted against his own sovereign, and setup as an independent ruler.

  By means of a well-equipped fleet of grabs and gallivats he made himselfmaster of place after place along the coast, including the Marathafortress at Suwarndrug and the Portuguese fort of Gheria. His successors,who adopted in turn the dynastic name of Angria, followed up Kunaji'sconquest, until by the year 1750 the ruling Angria was in possession of astrip of territory on the mainland a hundred and eighty miles long andabout forty broad, together with many small adjacent islands.

  For the defense of this little piratical state Angria's Marathasconstructed a number of forts, choosing admirable positions anddisplaying no small measure of engineering skill. From these strongholdsthey made depredations by sea and land, not only upon their nativeneighbors, but also upon the European traders, English, Dutch, andPortuguese; swooping down on unprotected merchant vessels and evenpresuming to attack warships. Several expeditions had been directedagainst them, but always in vain; and when in 1754 the chief of thatdate, Tulaji Angria, known to Europeans as the Pirate, burnt two largeDutch vessels of fifty and thirty-six guns respectively, and captured asmaller one of eighteen guns, he boasted in his elation that he wouldsoon be master of the Indian seas.

  But a term was about to be put to his insolence and his depredations. OnMarch twenty-second, 1755, Commodore William James, commander of the EastIndia Company's mar
ine force, set sail from Bombay in the Protector offorty-four guns, with the Swallow of sixteen guns, and two bomb vessels.With the assistance of a Maratha fleet he had attacked the islandfortress of Suwarndrug, and captured it, as Hybati had related. A fewdays afterwards another of the Pirate's fortresses, the island ofBancoote, six miles north of Suwarndrug, surrendered. The Maratha rajah,Ramaji Punt, delighted with these successes against fortified placeswhich had for nearly fifty years been deemed impregnable, offered theEnglish commodore an immense sum of money to proceed against others ofAngria's forts; but the monsoon approaching, the commodore was recalledto Bombay.

  The spot at which the Good Intent had fallen in with the sinking grab wasabout eighty miles from the Indian coast, and Captain Barker expected tosight land next day. No one was more delighted at the prospect thanDesmond. Leaving out of account the miseries of the long voyage, he feltthat now he was within reach of the goal of his hopes. The future was alluncertain; he was no longer inclined to trust his fortunes to Diggle, forthough he could not believe that the man had deliberately practisedagainst his life, he had with good reason lost confidence in him, andwhat he had learned from Bulger threw a new light on his past career.

  One thing puzzled him. If the Pirate was such a terror to unprotectedships, and strong enough to attack several armed vessels at once, why wasCaptain Barker running into the very jaws of the enemy? In her palmy daysas an East Indiaman the Good Intent had carried a dozen nine-pounders onher upper deck and six on the quarterdeck; and Bulger had said that undera stout captain she had once beaten off near Surat half a dozenthree-masted grabs and a score of gallivats from the pirate stronghold atGheria. But now she had only half a dozen guns all told, and even had shepossessed the full armament there were not men enough to work them, forher complement of forty men was only half what it had been when shesailed under the Company's flag.

  Desmond confided his puzzlement to Bulger. The seaman laughed.

  "Why, bless 'ee, we en't a-goin' to run into no danger. Trust Cap'nBarker for that. You en't supercargo, to be sure; but who do you thinkthem guns and round shots in the hold be for? Why, the Pirate himself.And he'll pay a good price for 'em, too."

  "Do you mean to say that English merchants supply Angria with weapons tofight against their own countrymen?"

  "Well, blest if you en't a innocent. In course they do. The guns en'talways fust-class metal, to be sure; but what's the odds? The interlopersha' got to live."

  "I don't call that right. It's not patriotic."

  "Patry what?"

  "Patriotic--a right way of thinking of one's own country. An Englishmanisn't worth the name who helps England's enemies."

  Bulger looked at him in amazement. The idea of patriotism was evidentlynew to him.

  "I'll have to put that there notion in my pipe and smoke it," he said."I'd fight any mounseer, or Dutchman, or Portuguee as soon as look athim, 'tis on'y natural; but if a mounseer likes to give me twopence for athing that's worth a penny--why, I'll say thank 'ee and axehim--leastways if there's any matey by as knows the lingo--to buyanother."

  Shortly after dawn next morning the lookout reported four vessels towindward. From their appearance Captain Barker at once concluded that twowere Company's ships, with an escort of a couple of grabs. As he wasstill scanning them he was joined by Diggle, with whom he entered intoconversation.

  "They're making for Bombay, I reckon," said the captain.

  "I take it we don't wish to come to close quarters with them, Barker?"

  "By thunder, no! But if we hold our present course we're bound to passwithin hailing distance. Better put 'em off the scent."

  He altered the vessel's course a point or two with the object of passingto windward of the strangers, as if steering for the Portuguese port ofGoa.

  "They are running up their colors," remarked Diggle, half an hour later.

  "British, as I thought. We'll hoist Portuguese."

  A minute or two later a puff of smoke was observed to sally from thelarger of the two grabs, followed in a few seconds by the boom of a gun.

  "A call to us to heave to," said Bulger, in answer to Desmond's inquiry."The unbelievin' critters thinks that Portuguee rag is all my eye."

  But the Good Intent was by this time to windward of the vessels, andCaptain Barker, standing on the quarterdeck, paid no heed to the signal.After a short interval another puff came from the deck of the grab, and around shot plunged into the sea a cable's length from the Good Intent'sbows, the grab at the same time hauling her wind and preparing to alterher course in pursuit. This movement was at once copied by the otherthree vessels, but being at least half a mile ahead of the grab that hadfired, they were a long distance astern when the chase--for chase it wasto be--began.

  Captain Barker watched the grab with the eyes of a lynx. The Good Intenthad run out of range while the grab was being put about; but the captainknew very well that the pursuer could sail much closer to the wind thanhis own vessel, and that his only chance was to beat off the leading boatbefore the others had time to come up.

  It required very little at any time to put Captain Barker into a rage,and his demeanor was watched now with different feelings by differentmembers of the crew. Diggle alone appeared unconcerned; he was smiling ashe lolled against the mast.

  "They'll fire at me, will they?" growled the captain with a curse. "Andchase me, will they? By jimmy, they shall sink me before I surrender!"

  "Degeneres animos timor arguit," quoted Diggle, smiling.

  "Argue it? I'll be hanged if I argue it! They're not king's ships to takeit on 'emselves to stop me on the high seas! If the Company wants toprevent me from honest trading in these waters let 'em go to law, and behanged to 'em! Talk of arguing! Lawyer's work. Humph!"

  "You mistake, Barker. The Roman fellow whose words slipped out of mymouth almost unawares said nothing of arguing. 'Fear is the mark of onlybase minds': so it runs in English, captain; which is as much as to saythat Captain Ben Barker is not the man to haul down his colors in ahurry."

  "You're right there. Another shot! That's their argument: well, BenBarker can talk that way as well as another."

  He called up the boatswain. Shortly afterwards the order was piped, "Upall hammocks!" The men quickly stowed their bedding, secured it withlashings, and carried it to the appointed places on the quarterdeck,poop, or forecastle. Meanwhile the boatswain and his mates secured theyards; the ship's carpenter brought up shot plugs for repairing anybreeches made under the waterline; and the gunners looked to the cannonand prepared charges for them and the small arms.

  Bulger was in charge of the twelve-pounder aft, and Mr. Toley had tolledoff Desmond to assist him. They stood side by side watching the progressof the grab, which gained steadily in spite of the plunging due to itscurious build. Presently another shot came from her; it shattered thebelfry on the forecastle of the Good Intent, and splashed into the sea ahundred yards ahead.

  "They make good practice, for sartin," remarked Bulger. "I may be wrong,but I'll lay my life there be old man-o'-war's men aboard. I mind me whenI was with Captain Golightly on the Minotaur--"

  But Bulger's yarn was intercepted. At that moment the boatswain piped,"All hands to quarters!" In a surprisingly short time all timber wascleared away, the galley fire was extinguished, the yards slung, the deckstrewn with wet sand, and sails, booms, and boats liberally drenched withwater. The gun captains, each with his crew, cast loose the lashings oftheir weapons and struck open the ports. The tompions was taken out; thesponge, rammer, crows and handspikes placed in readiness, and all awaitedeagerly the word for the action to begin.

  "'Tis about time we opened our mouths at 'em," said Bulger. "The nextbolus they send us as like as not will bring the spars a-rattlin' aboutour ears. To be sure it goes against my stummick to fire on oldmessmates; but it en't in Englishmen to hold their noses and swallowpills o' that there size. We'll load up all ready, mateys."

  He stripped to the waist, and tied a handkerchief over his ea
rs. Desmondand the men followed his example. Then one of them sponged the bore,another inserted the cartridge, containing three pounds of powder, bymeans of a long ladle, a third shoved in a wad of rope yarn. This havingbeen driven home by the rammer, the round shot was inserted, and coveredlike the cartridge with a wad. Then Bulger took his priming iron, aninstrument like a long thin corkscrew, and thrust it into the touch holeto clear the vent and make an incision in the cartridge. Removing thepriming iron, he replaced it by the priming tube--a thin tapering tubewith very narrow bore. Into this he poured a quantity of fine mealedpowder; then he laid a train of the same powder in the little groove cutin the gun from the touch hole towards the breech. With the end of hispowder horn he slightly bruised the train, and the gun only awaited aspark from the match.

  Everything was done very quickly, and Desmond watched the seamen withadmiration. He himself had charge of the linstock, about which was woundseveral matches, consisting of lengths of twisted cotton wick steeped inlye. They had already been lighted, for they burnt so slowly that theywould last for several hours.

  "Now, we're shipshape," said Bulger. "Mind you, Burke, don't come to farfor'ard with your linstock. I don't want the train fired with no sparksafore I'm ready. And 'ware o' the breech; she'll kick like a jumpingjackass when the shot flies out of her, an'll knock your teeth out aforeyou can say Jack Robinson--

  "Ah! there's the word at last; now, mateys, here goes!"

  He laid the gun, waited for the ship to rise from a roll, and then tookone of the matches, gently blew its smoldering end, and applied theglowing wick to the bruised part of the priming. There was a flash, aroar, and before Desmond could see the effect of the shot Bulger hadclosed the vent, the gun was run in, and the sponger was at work cleaningthe chamber.

  As the black smoke cleared away it was apparent that the seaman had notforgotten his cunning. The shot had struck the grab on the deck of theprow and smashed into the forecastle. But the bow chasers were apparentlyuninjured, for they replied a few seconds later.

  "Ah! There's a wunner!" said Bulger admiringly.

  A shot had carried away a yard of the gunwale of the Good Intent,scattering splinters far and wide, which inflicted nasty wounds on thesecond mate and a seaman on the quarterdeck. A jagged end of the woodflying high struck Diggle on the left cheek. He wiped away the bloodimperturbably; it was evident that lack of courage was not among hisdefects.

  Captain Barker's ire was now at white heat. Shouting an order to Bulgerand the next man to make rapid practice with the two stern chasers, heprepared to fall off and bring the Good Intent's broadside to bear on theenemy.

  But the next shot was decisive. Diggle had quietly strolled down to thegun next to Bulger's. It had just been reloaded. He bade the gun captain,in a low tone, to move aside. Then, with a glance to see that the primingwas in order, he took careful sight, and waiting until the grab's main,mizzen and foremasts opened to view altogether, he applied the match. Theshot sped true, and a second later the grab's mainmast, with sails andrigging, went by the board.

  A wild cheer from the crew of the Good Intent acclaimed the excellentshot.

  "By thunder!" said Bulger to Desmond. "Diggle may be a rogue and avagabond, but he knows how to train a gun."

  Captain Barker signified his approval by a tremendous mouth-filling oath.But he was not yet safe. The second grab was following hard in the wakeof the first; and it was plain that the two Indiamen were both somewhatfaster than the Good Intent; for during the running fight that had justended so disastrously for the grab, they had considerably lessened thegap between them and their quarry. Captain Barker watched them with anexpression of fierce determination, but not without anxiety. If theyshould come within striking distance it was impossible to withstandsuccessfully their heavier armament and larger crews. The firing hadceased: each vessel had crowded on all sail; and the brisk breeze mustsoon bring pursuer and pursued to a close engagement which could haveonly one result.

  "I may be wrong, but seems to me we'd better say our prayers," Bulgerremarked grimly to his gun crew.

  But Desmond, gazing up at the shrouds, said suddenly:

  "The wind's dropping. Look!"

  It was true. Before the monsoon sets in in earnest it not unfrequentlyhappens that the wind veers fitfully; a squall is succeeded almostinstantaneously by a calm. So it was now. In less than an hour all fivevessels were becalmed; and when night fell three miles separated the GoodIntent from the second grab; the Indiamen lay a mile farther astern; andthe damaged vessel was out of sight.

  Captain Barker took counsel with his officers. He expected to be attackedduring the night by the united boats of the pursuing fleet. Under coverof darkness they would be able to creep up close and board the vessel,and the captain knew well that if taken he would be treated as a pirate.His papers were made out for Philadelphia; he had hoisted Portuguesecolors, but the enemy at close quarters could easily see that the GoodIntent was British built; he had disabled one of the Company's vessels;there would be no mercy for him.

  He saw no chance of beating off the enemy; they would outnumber him by atleast five to one. Even if the wind sprang up again there was smalllikelihood of escape. One or other of the pursuing vessels would almostcertainly overhaul him, and hold him until the others came up.

  "'Tis a 'tarnal fix," he said.

  "Methinks 'tis a case of actum est de nobis," remarked Diggle pleasantly.

  "Confound you!" said the captain with a burst of anger. "What could Iexpect with a gallows bird like you aboard? 'Tis enough to sink a vesselwithout shot."

  Diggle's face darkened. But in a moment his smile returned.

  "You are overwrought, captain," he said; "you are unstrung. 'Twould beridiculous to take amiss words said in haste. In cold blood--well, youknow me, Captain Barker. I will leave you to recover from your briefmadness."

  He went below. The captain was left with Mr. Toley and the otherofficers. Barker and Toley always got on well together, for the simplereason that the mate never thwarted his superior, never resented hisabuse, but went quietly his own way. He listened now for a quarter of anhour, with fixed sadness of expression, while Captain Barker poured thevials of his wrath upon everything under the sun. When the captain hadcome to an end, and sunk into an estate of lowering dudgeon, Mr. Toleysaid quietly:

  "'Tis all you say, sir, and more. I guess I've never seen a harder case.But while you was speaking, something you said struck a sort of idea intomy brain."

  "That don't happen often. What is it?"

  "Why, the sort of idea that came to me out o' what you was saying wasjust this. How would it be to take soundings?"

  "So, that's your notion, is it? Hang me, are you a fool like the rest of'em? You're always taking soundings! What in the name of thunder do youwant to take soundings for?"

  "Nothing particular, cap'n. That was the kind o' notion that come of whatyou was saying. Of course it depends on the depths hereabouts."

  "Deep enough to sink you and your notions and all that's like to come of'em. Darned if I ain't got the most lubberly company ever mortal man wasplagued with. Officers and men, there en't one of you as is worth yoursalt, and you with your long face and your notions--why, hang me, you'reno more good than the dirtiest waister afloat."

  Mr. Toley smiled sadly, and ventured on no rejoinder. After the captain'soutburst none of the group dared to utter a word. This pleased him nobetter; he cursed them all for standing mum; and spent ten minutes inreviling them in turn. Then his passion appeared to have burnt itselfout. Turning suddenly to the melancholy mate, he said roughly:

  "Go and heave your lead, then, and be hanged to it."

  Mr. Toley walked away aft and ordered one of the men to heave thedeep-sea lead. The plummet, shaped like the frustum of a cone, andweighing thirty pounds, was thrown out from the side in the line of thevessel's drift.

  "By the mark sixty, less five," sang out the man when the lead touchedthe bottom.

  "I guess that'll do," said the first m
ate, returning to the quarterdeck.

  "Well, what about your notion?" said the captain scornfully. But helistened quietly and with an intent look upon his weatherbeaten face asMr. Toley explained.

  "You see, sir," he said, "while you was talking just now, I sort o' sawthat if they attack us, 'twon't be for at least two hours after dark. Theboats won't put off while there's light enough to see 'em; and won'thurry anyhow, 'cos if they did the men 'ud have nary much strength leftto 'em. Well, they'll take our bearings, of course. Thinks I, owing towhat you said, sir, what if we could shift 'em by half a mile or so? Theboats 'ud miss us in the darkness."

  "That's so," ejaculated the captain; "and what then?"

  "Well, sir, 'tis there my idea of taking soundings comes in. The GoodIntent can't be towed, not with our handful of men; but why shouldn't shebe kedged? That's the notion, sir; and I guess you'll think it over."

  "By jimmy, Toley, you en't come out o' Salem, Massachusetts, for nothing.'Tis a notion, a rare one; Ben Barker en't the man to bear a grudge, andI take back them words o' mine--leastways some on 'em.

  "Bo'sun, get ready to lower the longboat."

  The longboat was lowered, out of sight of the enemy. A kedge anchor,fastened to a stout hawser, was put on board, and as soon as it wassufficiently dark to make so comparatively small an object as a boatinvisible to the hostile craft, she put off at right angles to the GoodIntent's previous course, the hawser attached to the kedge being paid outas the boat drew away. When it had gone about a fifth of a mile from thevessel the kedge was dropped, and a signal was given by hauling on therope.

  "Clap on, men!" cried Captain Barker. "Get a good purchase, and none ofyour singsong; avast all jabber."

  The crew manned the windlass and began with a will to haul on the cablein dead silence. The vessel was slowly warped ahead. Meanwhile thelongboat was returning; when she reached the side of the Good Intent, asecond kedge was lowered into her, and again she put off, to drop theanchor two cables' length beyond the first, so that when the ship hadtripped that, the second was ready to be hauled on.

  When the Good Intent had been thus warped a mile from her position atnightfall, Captain Parker ordered the operation to be stopped. To avoidnoise the boat was not hoisted in. No lights were shown, and the skybeing somewhat overcast, the boat's crew found that the ship wasinvisible at the distance of a fourth of a cable's length.

  "I may be wrong," said Bulger to Desmond, "but I don't believe kedgin'was ever done so far from harbor afore. I allers thought there wassomething in that long head of Mr. Toley, though, to be sure, there en'tno call for him to pull a long face, too."

  An hour passed after the loading had been stopped. All on board the GoodIntent remained silent, speaking, if they spoke at all, in whispers.There had been no signs of the expected attack. Desmond was leaning onthe gunwale, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the enemy. But his earsgave him the first intimation of their approach. He heard a faintcreaking, as of oars in rowlocks, and stepped back to where Bulger wasleaning against the mast.

  "There they come," he said.

  The sound had already reached Captain Barker's ears. It was faint;doubtless the oars were muffled. The ship was rolling lazily; save forthe creaking nothing was heard but the lapping of the ripples against thehull. So still was the night that the slightest sound must travel far,and the captain remarked in a whisper to Mr. Toley that he guessed theapproaching boats to be at least six cables' lengths distant.

  Officers and men listened intently. The creaking grew no louder; on thecontrary, it gradually became fainter, and at last died away. There was along silence, broken only by what sounded like a low hail someconsiderable distance away.

  "They're musterin' the boats," said Bulger, with a chuckle. "I may bewrong, but I'll bet my breeches they find they've overshot the mark. Nowthey'll scatter and try to nose us out."

  Another hour of anxious suspense slowly passed, and still nothing hadhappened. Then suddenly a blue light flashed for a few moments on theblackness of the sea, answered almost instantaneously by a rocket fromanother quarter. It was clear that the boats, having signaled that thesearch had failed, had been recalled by the rocket to the fleet.

  "By thunder, Mr. Toley, you've done the trick!" said the captain.

  "I guess we don't get our living by making mistakes--not in Salem,Massachusetts," returned the first mate with his sad smile.

  Through the night the watch was kept with more than ordinary vigilance,but nothing occurred to give Captain Barker anxiety. With morning lightthe enemy could be seen far astern.