The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales

by Robert E. Howard

  Jonathan quitted the room without reply, and made his reappearance with the letter.

  “It is a long time that I have been expecting this vessel, Jonathan,” observed Mr Witherington, unfolding the letter.

  “Yes, sir, a long while; tempus fugit,” replied the butler in a low tone, half shutting his eyes.

  “I hope to God no accident has happened,” continued Mr Witherington: “my poor little cousin and her twins e’en now that I speak, they may be all at the bottom of the sea.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the butler; “the sea defrauds many an honest undertaker of his profits.”

  “By the blood of the Witheringtons! I may be left without an heir, and shall be obliged to marry, which would be very uncomfortable.”

  “Very little comfort,” echoed Jonathan—“my wife is dead. In caelo quies.”

  “Well, we must hope for the best; but this suspense is anything but comfortable,” observed Mr Witherington, after looking over the contents of the letter for at least the twentieth time.

  “That will do, Jonathan; I’ll ring for coffee presently;” and Mr Witherington was again alone and with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling.

  A cousin of Mr Witherington, and a very great favourite (for Mr Witherington, having a large fortune, and not having anything to do with business, was courted by his relations), had, to a certain degree, committed herself; that is to say, that, notwithstanding the injunctions of her parents, she had fallen in love with a young lieutenant in a marching regiment, whose pedigree was but respectable, and whose fortune was anything but respectable, consisting merely of a subaltern’s pay. Poor men, unfortunately, always make love better than those who are rich, because, having less to care about, and not being puffed up with their own consequence, they are not so selfish and think much more of the lady than of themselves. Young ladies, also, who fall in love, never consider whether there is sufficient “to make the pot boil”—probably because young ladies in love lose their appetites, and, not feeling inclined to eat at that time, they imagine that love will always supply the want of food. Now, we will appeal to the married ladies whether we are not right in asserting that, although the collation spread for them and their friends on the day of the marriage is looked upon with almost loathing, they do not find their appetites return with interest soon afterwards. This was precisely the case with Cecilia, or rather, Cecilia Templemore, for she had changed her name the day before. It was also the case with her husband, who always had a good appetite, even during his days of courtship; and the consequence was, that the messman’s account, for they lived in barracks, was, in a few weeks, rather alarming. Cecilia applied to her family, who very kindly sent her word that she might starve; but, the advice neither suiting her nor her husband, she then wrote to her cousin Antony, who sent her word that he would be most happy to receive them at his table, and that they should take up their abode in Finsbury Square. This was exactly what they wished; but still there was a certain difficulty; Lieutenant Templemore’s regiment was quartered in a town in Yorkshire, which was some trifling distance from Finsbury Square; and to be at Mr Witherington’s dinner-table at six P.M., with the necessity of appearing at parade every morning at nine A.M., was a dilemma not to be got out of. Several letters were interchanged upon this knotty subject: and at last it was agreed that Mr Templemore should sell out, and come up to Mr Witherington with his pretty wife: he did so, and found that it was much more comfortable to turn out at nine o’clock in the morning to a good breakfast than to a martial parade. But Mr Templemore had an honest pride and independence of character which would not permit him to eat the bread of idleness, and after a sojourn of two months in most comfortable quarters, without a messman’s bill, he frankly stated his feelings to Mr Witherington, and requested his assistance to procure for himself an honourable livelihood. Mr Witherington, who had become attached to them both, would have remonstrated, observing that Cecilia was his own cousin, and that he was a confirmed bachelor; but, in this instance, Mr Templemore was firm, and Mr Witherington very unwillingly consented. A mercantile house of the highest respectability required a partner who could superintend their consignments to America. Mr Witherington advanced the sum required; and, in a few weeks, Mr and Mrs Templemore sailed for New York.

  Mr Templemore was active and intelligent; their affairs prospered; and, in a few years, they anticipated a return to their native soil with a competence. But the autumn of the second year after their arrival proved very sickly; the yellow fever raged; and among the thousands who were carried off, Mr Templemore was a victim, about three weeks after his wife had been brought to bed of twins. Mrs Templemore rose from her couch a widow and the mother of two fine boys. The loss of Mr Templemore was replaced by the establishment with which he was connected, and Mr Witherington offered to his cousin that asylum which, in her mournful and unexpected bereavement, she so much required. In three months her affairs were arranged; and with her little boys hanging at the breasts of two negro nurses,—for no others could be procured who would undertake the voyage,—Mrs Templemore, with Coco as male servant, embarked on board of the good ship Circassian, A1, bound to Liverpool.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Gale

  Those who, standing on the pier, had witnessed the proud bearing of the Circassian as she gave her canvas to the winds, little contemplated her fate: still less did those on board; for confidence is the characteristic of seamen, and they have the happy talent of imparting their confidence to whomsoever may be in their company. We shall pass over the voyage, confining ourselves to a description of the catastrophe.

  It was during a gale from the north-west, which had continued for three days, and by which the Circassian had been driven into the Bay of Biscay, that at about twelve o’clock at night, a slight lull was perceptible. The captain, who had remained on deck, sent down for the chief mate. “Oswald,” said Captain Ingram, “the gale is breaking, and I think before morning we shall have had the worst of it. I shall lie down for an hour or two; call me if there be any change.”

  Oswald Bareth, a tall, sinewy-built, and handsome specimen of transatlantic growth, examined the whole circumference of the horizon before he replied. At last his eyes were steadily fixed to leeward: “I’ve a notion not, sir,” said he; “I see no signs of clearing off to leeward: only a lull for relief, and a fresh hand at the bellows, depend upon it.”

  “We have now had it three days,” replied Captain Ingram, “and that’s the life of a summer gale.”

  “Yes,” rejoined the mate; “but always provided that it don’t blow back again. I don’t like the look of it, sir; and have it back we shall, as sure as there’s snakes in Virginny.”

  “Well, so be if so be,” was the safe reply of the captain. “You must keep a sharp look out, Bareth, and don’t leave the deck to call me; send a hand down.”

  The captain descended to his cabin. Oswald looked at the compass in the binnacle—spoke a few words to the man at the helm—gave one or two terrible kicks in the ribs to some of the men who were caulking—sounded the pump-well—put a fresh quid of tobacco into his cheek, and then proceeded to examine the heavens above. A cloud, much darker and more descending than the others, which obscured the firmament, spread over the zenith, and based itself upon the horizon to leeward. Oswald’s eye had been fixed upon it but a few seconds, when he beheld a small lambent gleam of lightning pierce through the most opaque part; then another, and more vivid. Of a sudden the wind lulled, and the Circassian righted from her careen. Again the wind howled, and again the vessel was pressed down to her bearings by its force: again another flash of lightning, which was followed by a distant peal of thunder.

  “Had the worst of it, did you say, captain? I’ve a notion that the worst is yet to come,” muttered Oswald, still watching the heavens.

  “How does she carry her helm, Matthew?” inquired Oswald, walking aft.

  “Spoke a-weather.”

  “I’ll have the trysail off her, at any rate,” continued the
mate. “Aft, there my lads! and lower down the trysail. Keep the sheet fast till it’s down, or the flogging will frighten the lady-passenger out of her wits. Well, if ever I own a craft, I’ll have no women on board. Dollars shan’t tempt me.”

  The lightning now played in rapid forks; and the loud thunder, which instantaneously followed each flash, proved its near approach. A deluge of slanting rain descended—the wind lulled—roared again—then lulled—shifted a point or two, and the drenched and heavy sails flapped.

  “Up with the helm, Mat!” cried Oswald, as a near flash of lightning for a moment blinded, and the accompanying peal of thunder deafened, those on deck. Again the wind blew strong—it ceased, and it was a dead calm. The sails hung down from the yards, and the rain descended in perpendicular torrents, while the ship rocked to and fro in the trough of the sea, and the darkness became suddenly intense.

  “Down there, one of you! and call the captain,” said Oswald. “By the Lord! we shall have it. Main braces there, men, and square the yards. Be smart! That topsail should have been in,” muttered the mate; “but I’m not captain. Square away the yards, my lads!” continued he; “quick, quick!—there’s no child’s play here!”

  Owing to the difficulty of finding and passing the ropes to each other, from the intensity of the darkness, and the deluge of rain which blinded them, the men were not able to execute the order of the mate so soon as it was necessary; and before they could accomplish their task, or Captain Ingram could gain the deck, the wind suddenly burst upon the devoted vessel from the quarter directly opposite to that from which the gale had blown, taking her all a-back, and throwing her on her beam-ends. The man at the helm was hurled over the wheel; while the rest, who were with Oswald at the main-bits, with the coils of ropes, and every other article on deck not secured, were rolled into the scuppers, struggling to extricate themselves from the mass of confusion and the water in which they floundered. The sudden revulsion awoke all the men below, who imagined that the ship was foundering; and, from the only hatchway not secured, they poured up in their shirts with their other garments in their hands, to put them on—if fate permitted.

  Oswald Bareth was the first who clambered up from to leeward. He gained the helm, which he put hard up. Captain Ingram and some of the seamen also gained the helm. It is the rendezvous of all good seamen in emergencies of this description: but the howling of the gale—the blinding of the rain and salt spray—the seas checked in their running by the shift of wind, and breaking over the ship in vast masses of water—the tremendous peals of thunder—and the intense darkness which accompanied these horrors, added to the inclined position of the vessel, which obliged them to climb from one part of the deck to another, for some time checked all profitable communication. Their only friend, in this conflict of the elements, was the lightning (unhappy, indeed, the situation in which lightning can be welcomed as a friend); but its vivid and forked flames, darting down upon every quarter of the horizon, enabled them to perceive their situation; and, awful as it was, when momentarily presented to their sight, it was not so awful as darkness and uncertainty. To those who have been accustomed to the difficulties and dangers of a sea-faring life, there are no lines which speak more forcibly to the imagination, or prove the beauty and power of the Greek poet, than those in the noble prayer of Ajax:

  “Lord of earth and air,

  O king! O father! hear my humble prayer.

  Dispel this cloud, that light of heaven restore;

  Give me to see—and Ajax asks no more,

  If Greece must perish—we Thy will obey;

  But let us perish in the face of day!”

  Oswald gave the helm to two of the seamen, and with his knife cut adrift the axes, which were lashed round the mizen-mast in painted canvas covers. One he retained for himself,—the others he put into the hands of the boatswain and the second mate. To speak so as to be heard was almost impossible, from the tremendous roaring of the wind; but the lamp still burned in the binnacle, and by its feeble light Captain Ingram could distinguish the signs made by the mate, and could give his consent. It was necessary that the ship should be put before the wind; and the helm had no power over her. In a short time the lanyards of the mizen rigging were severed, and the mizen-mast went over the side, almost unperceived by the crew on the other parts of the deck, or even those near, had it not been from blows received by those who were too close to it, from the falling of the topsail-sheets and the rigging about the mast.

  Oswald, with his companions, regained the binnacle, and for a little while watched the compass. The ship did not pay off, and appeared to settle down more into the water. Again Oswald made his signs, and again the captain gave his assent. Forward sprang the undaunted mate, clinging to the bulwark and belaying-pins, and followed by his hardy companions, until they had all three gained the main channels. Here, their exposure to the force of the breaking waves, and the stoutness of the ropes yielding but slowly to the blows of the axes, which were used almost under water, rendered the service one of extreme difficulty and danger. The boatswain was washed over the bulwark and dashed to leeward, where the lee-rigging only saved him from a watery grave. Unsubdued, he again climbed up to windward, rejoined and assisted his companions. The last blow was given by Oswald—the lanyards flew through the dead-eyes—and the tall mast disappeared in the foaming seas. Oswald and his companions hastened from their dangerous position, and rejoined the captain, who, with many of the crew, still remained near the wheel. The ship now slowly paid off and righted. In a few minutes she was flying before the gale, rolling heavily, and occasionally striking upon the wrecks of the masts, which she towed with her by the lee-rigging.

  Although the wind blew with as much violence as before, still it was not with the same noise, now that the ship was before the wind with her after-masts gone. The next service was to clear the ship of the wrecks of the masts; but, although all now assisted, but little could be effected until the day had dawned, and even then it was a service of danger, as the ship rolled gunwale under. Those who performed the duty were slung in ropes, that they might not be washed away; and hardly was it completed, when a heavy roll, assisted by a jerking heave from a sea which struck her on the chess-tree, sent the foremast over the starboard cathead. Thus was the Circassian dismasted in the gale.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Leak

  The wreck of the foremast was cleared from the ship; the gale continued, but the sun shone brightly and warmly. The Circassian was again brought to the wind. All danger was now considered to be over, and the seamen joked and laughed as they were busied in preparing jury-masts to enable them to reach their destined port.

  “I wouldn’t have cared so much about this spree,” said the boatswain, “if it warn’t for the mainmast; it was such a beauty. There’s not another stick to be found equal to it in the whole length of the Mississippi.”

  “Bah! man,” replied Oswald; “there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, and as good sticks growing as ever were felled; but I guess we’ll pay pretty dear for our spars when we get to Liverpool,—but that concerns the owners.”

  The wind, which, at the time of its sudden change to the southward and eastward, had blown with the force of a hurricane, now settled into a regular strong gale, such as sailors are prepared to meet and laugh at. The sky was also bright and clear, and they had not the danger of a lee shore. It was a delightful change after a night of darkness, danger, and confusion and the men worked that they might get sufficient sail on the ship to steady her, and enable them to shape a course.

  “I suppose now that we have the trysail on her forward, the captain will be for running for it,” observed one who was busy turning in a dead-eye.

  “Yes,” replied the boatswain; “and with this wind on our quarter we shan’t want much sail, I’ve a notion.”

  “Well, then, one advantage in losing your mast—you haven’t much trouble about the rigging.”

  “Trouble enough, though, Bill, when we get in,�
�� replied another, gruffly; “new lower rigging to parcel and sarve, and every block to turn in afresh.”

  “Never mind, longer in port—I’ll get spliced.”

  “Why, how often do you mean to get spliced, Bill? You’ve a wife in every State, to my sartin knowledge.”

  “I ain’t got one at Liverpool, Jack.”

  “Well, you may take one there, Bill; for you’ve been sweet upon that black girl for these last three weeks.”

  “Any port in a storm, but she won’t do for harbor duty. But the fact is, you’re all wrong there, Jack, its the babbies I likes—I likes to see them both together, hanging at the blacks’ breasts, I always think of two spider-monkeys nursing two kittens.”

  “I knows the women, but I never knows the children. It’s just six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; ain’t it, Bill?”

  “Yes; like two bright bullets out of the same mould. I say, Bill, did any of your wives ever have twins?”

  “No; nor I don’t intend, until the owners give us double pay.”

  “By-the-bye,” interrupted Oswald, who had been standing under the weather bulk-head, listening to the conversation, and watching the work in progress, “we may just as well see if she has made any water with all this straining and buffeting. By the Lord I never thought of that. Carpenter, lay down your adze and sound the well.”

  The carpenter, who, notwithstanding the uneasiness of the dismasted vessel, was performing his important share of the work, immediately complied with the order. He drew up the rope-yarn, to which an iron rule had been suspended, and lowered down into the pump-well, and perceived that the water was dripping from it. Imagining that it must have been wet from the quantity of water shipped over all, the carpenter disengaged the rope-yarn from the rule, drew another from the junk lying on the deck, which the seamen were working up, and then carefully proceeded to plumb the well. He hauled it up, and, looking at it for some moments aghast, exclaimed, “Seven feet of water in the hold, by God.”