The pipe was at length finished, and then the smoker, with the same deliberation which had characterised his former movements, once more applied the sextant to his eye.
“Well,” shouted Johnson, “what news of the stranger aloft there?”
“Gaining on us, hand over fist,” was the reply.
“That’ll do then; you may as well come down,” snarled the pirate skipper. “Your staying perched up there, like an owl in an ivy bush, won’t help us any; come down and make yourself useful, d’ye hear?”
“Ay, ay,” answered the mate, “I’m coming, boss.” And he forthwith proceeded to descend the rigging in a careless nonchalant manner which evidently drove his superior almost to the verge of frenzy.
Half an hour passed, and then there appeared far away on the horizon, on the brig’s lee quarter, a tiny white speck, which steadily though imperceptibly increased in size until the snowy royals of a large ship stood fully revealed.
This was about half-past three in the afternoon, at which time the wind showed signs of failing.
By half-past four o’clock the stranger had risen her topgallant-sails above the horizon, and it could clearly be seen, even with the unaided eye, that she had royal as well as topgallant studding-sails set, and there could not be a shadow of doubt that she was after the brig.
The spirits of our friends rose to such a high pitch of exultation at this agreeable sight that they found it difficult to conceal their delight when Johnson, abandoning his post near the helmsman, joined them.
“Well, strangers,” he remarked with a grim smile, “there’s a chance for you yet, you see. That’s one of them cursed frigates you was talking about this morning, colonel, but she’s a tarnation sight smarter’n I gave any of ’em credit for being. I tell you, cap’n, if this had been the forenoon-watch instead of the first dog-watch it would have been all up with this brig. But now I don’t feel quite so sorter anxious as I did. I reckon that unless the breeze freshens, which it ain’t going to do, it will take that craft till midnight to get alongside of us; and if she can do it then, why she’s welcome to the brig and all aboard of her, curse me if she ain’t. See them clouds gathering, away there to the nor’ard? That’s a thunder-storm working up, but it won’t break for some hours yet, I calculate, and them clouds is going to do me a good turn before that. I reckon you’ll have to make up your minds to go to Albatross Island yet, strangers.”
And he dived below to his cabin, evidently in an easier state of mind than he had enjoyed an hour before.
By six o’clock the frigate’s topsails had risen more than half their height above the horizon, and when Lance, Captain Staunton, and Bowles returned to the deck after the evening meal, the waning light just enabled them to see the stranger’s lower yards fairly clear of the water. Before they lost sight of her altogether half her courses had risen into view.
The night closed down very dark, there being no moon, and the sky was entirely overspread with heavy black murky-looking thunder-clouds which completely hid the stars. The wind, too, had dropped to such an extent that an occasional ominous flap was heard from the canvas aloft, though the brig still slid through the water at the rate of about four knots in the hour.
Johnson was in high spirits again. He sat aft near the taffrail, attentively watching the frigate through his night-glass long after she had disappeared from the naked eye; and when it at last became difficult to make her out even with the aid of the glass, he would lay it down, rub his eyes, take half a dozen turns along the deck, then pick up the glass again and have another spell at it. Finally he turned to the mate, who was standing near him, and tendering the glass, said—
“There, take a look, Ben, and tell me if you can pick her out.”
The mate peered long and attentively through the telescope, moving it very slowly about that part of the horizon where he knew the frigate to be, but without success.
“It’s no go, boss,” he said, “my eyes are pretty good, but they’re not good enough to see through such darkness as this.”
Johnson chuckled. “Do you think,” said he, “it looks any lighter ahead? Would our sails show against that cloud-bank in the wake of the fore-mast?”
“Not they,” answered the mate confidently. “Why, it’s darker, if anything, ahead than it is astern.”
“That’s so,” agreed Johnson with another chuckle. “Now, what,” he continued, “what do you think was the last thing the skipper of that frigate did before the darkness closed down?”
“Well,” said the mate, “if he knew his business, I should say he would take our bearings.”
“And you may take your oath that’s exactly what he did,” returned Johnson. “Now, take a look round and tell me what you think of the weather.”
“The weather?” repeated the mate; “why, a child almost could tell what the weather’s going to be. We’re going to have thunder, which will bring a northerly breeze along with it while it lasts.”
“Capital!” exclaimed Johnson. “Do you think, now, that the captain of that man-o’-war astern is of the same opinion as you and I are about the weather?”
“He’s certain to be if he’s a seaman,” was the reply.
“Now, once more,” proceeded Johnson, “supposing you thought of giving the frigate the slip, as we might very easily do this dark night, what course would you steer?”
“I should steer to the nor’ard,” answered the mate, “so as to be to wind’ard when the change comes.”
“I knew it,” exclaimed Johnson delightedly; “I was dead certain of it. Now, we’re going to give that frigate the slip by steering to the south’ard; because her skipper will argue as you do, and when he finds he’s lost the run of us, he’ll haul up to the nor’ard directly. Now, just pass the word for the carpenter to bring along that water-cask I ordered him to rig up this afternoon.”
The word was passed, and in a minute or two three men came aft bearing what appeared to be a water-cask with a pole passed down through the bung-hole, and right out through the other side, about six feet of the pole projecting on each side of the cask. To one end of this pole was lashed a short light batten, and to the other end the men now proceeded to secure a small pig of iron ballast. This done, the whole was launched overboard from the taffrail, the cask floating bung up, with half the pole and the light batten standing perpendicularly above it like a mast. To the upper end of this batten was lashed an old horn lantern with a lighted candle in it, after which the whole apparatus was suffered to go adrift.
“Now, in stunsails, and brace sharp up on the port tack,” ordered Johnson.
This was soon done; and the brig now feeling the full strength of what little wind there was, seemed to slip along through the water quite as fast as before.
Johnson looked away out over the weather quarter to where the beacon-lantern glimmered in the intense darkness.
“There,” said he; “that’ll perhaps help to mislead ’em a bit. They’ll take it for our binnacle-light, and’ll keep straight on till they run over it. Then, finding we’ve played ’em a trick, they’ll haul straight up to the nor’ard, thinking we’ve gone that way too, and we shall soon be out of sight of one another.”
Johnson kept his gaze intently fixed upon the tiny light as long as it remained visible to the naked eye, and when it could no longer be seen in that fashion he deliberately set himself to watch it through his night-glass. More than an hour had elapsed since the cask had been sent adrift before he manifested any signs of emotion, but at length he began to chuckle audibly—
“Now they’re nearing it,” he murmured, with his eye glued to the tube. “I can see the craft clearly now; they’ve cast loose the guns and opened the ports; I can see the light of the lanterns shining through ’em. She’s creeping up to it pretty fast; but I guess we’ve walked away from it quite a considerable distance too. There! Now they’ve run aboard of that tarnation old water-barrel; they know what ’tis by this time, and I reckon the skipper of that frigate is ripping an
d tearing and cussing and going on till the air smells of brimstone for a quarter of a mile all round. Ah! just as I expected. They’ve hauled up to the nor’ard; her stern’s towards us, for I can see the lights shining out of her cabin-windows; and now every minute ’ll take us further apart. Waal, I’m glad I thought of laying for ’em with that old lantern; it’ll sorter tell ’em that we’re having a good laugh at ’em; won’t it, colonel?” turning to our friends and addressing Lance in high good-humour.
“Doubtless you have succeeded in greatly provoking them, if that was your object,” replied Lance; “but if I were in your place I don’t think I should feel quite easy in my mind yet. If that thunder-storm which has been brewing for so long were to break, as it may do at any moment, the flash of the lightning would be certain to reveal your whereabouts to them.”
“I reckon we’ll have to take our chance of that,” remarked Johnson in a more sober tone; “but let it keep dark half an hour longer, and I don’t care how much it lightens after that. Ah, tarnation! look at that.”
This last ejaculation was provoked by the sudden illumination of the northern heavens by a brilliant flash of sheet lightning, which revealed not only every detail of the vast bank of murky clouds which lay heaped up, as it were, upon the horizon, but also distinctly showed the frigate on its very verge, still holding steadily northward, her hull and sails standing out sharply like a block of ebony against the faint bluish gleam of the electric light.
Another flash soon followed, then another, and another, the flashes following each other with increasing rapidity, to Johnson’s manifest discomfiture; but, though he was evidently unaware of it, the brig was so far perfectly safe from discovery; for the lightning continued to flash up only in the northern quarter, leaving the remainder of the horizon veiled in impenetrable darkness; so that, though the frigate was distinctly revealed to the brig, the brig was completely hidden from the frigate.
The lightning, however, though it had not yet shown the brig’s whereabouts, had enabled those on board the frigate to ascertain that she was not ahead of them, as they had supposed, for when the next flash came the man-o’-war was seen nearly broadside-on to the brig, and heading about south-west, her captain having evidently come to the conclusion that the Albatross, after setting her lure, had doubled back like a hare upon her former course.
Johnson waited until another flash came, revealing the frigate still upon the same course, and then he gave orders for his vessel to be kept away, steering this time to the southward and eastward, or about at right angles to the course of the frigate. Ten minutes later the latter was hull-down.
“Now we’re safe!” ejaculated the pirate skipper delightedly. “Clew up and furl everything, lads, and be smart about it, for in another five minutes we’ll have the lightning flashing all round us; but under bare poles I guess it’ll take sharp eyes to pick us out.”
“Waal, colonel,” he remarked to Lance, shortly afterwards, “I reckon that was a narrer squeak for us, that was. If I’d been fool enough to go to the nor’ard, they’d have had us for sure. That’s a right smart frigate, that is; and I guess she’s a Yankee. You Britishers don’t build such smart boats as that. After this I’m bound more’n ever to have that schooner you promised to build for me, for I don’t mind owning up that I began to feel skeered a bit when I saw how we was bein’ catched up. Do you think, now, colonel, you could build a schooner that would have walked away from that frigate?”
“Oh dear, yes!” answered Lance, “I am quite sure I could; only, remember, I must not be interfered with in any way. I cannot have people troubling me with suggestions, or, worse still, insisting upon my grafting their ideas on to my own. The ship must be exclusively my own design, and then I can promise you we will turn out a craft capable, if need be, of running away from the fastest frigate that ever was launched.”
“All right, colonel; don’t you trouble about that,” was the reply. “Only say what you want, and it shall be done; and if anybody tries to interfere with you, just point ’em out to me, that’s all.”
“Very well,” returned Lance. “Then I shall consider that a bargain; and now I will wish you good-night, as I think there will be rain shortly, and I’ve no particular fancy for a drenching unless it comes in the way of duty.”
The following morning dawned bright and fair, the thunder-storm of the preceding night having broken and raged furiously for a couple of hours soon after our friends left the deck, and then cleared completely away. When Captain Staunton went on deck he found a fine breeze blowing once more from the westward, and the brig dashing along at a slashing pace under topgallant-sails, with her nose pointing to the northward. The air was clear and transparent; not a cloud flecked the deep blue of the sky overhead; and a man, who had shinned aloft at Johnson’s orders as far as the main truck, was just in the act of reporting that there was nothing anywhere in sight. So that any lingering hopes which Captain Staunton may have entertained as to the possibility of the frigate rediscovering them were speedily dashed to the ground.
The fine weather lasted; and three days afterwards, about two o’clock in the afternoon, the look-out aloft reported, “Land ho! right ahead!”
“What is it like?” hailed Johnson from his seat on the skylight.
“It’s Look-out Peak, sir; I can make out the shape of it quite well.”
“That’s all right,” returned Johnson. “Stay where you are, and let me know if you see anything like a signal.”
In a couple of hours more the land was distinctly visible from the deck, the peak spoken of as “Look-out Peak” appearing first, and then the land on each side of it, rising gradually above the ocean’s brim until it lay stretched along the horizon for a length of some half a dozen miles. As they drew in towards the island, our friends (all of whom, excepting the ladies, were on deck) half expected to be sent below in order that they might not become acquainted with the navigation of the harbor-entrance; but this idea did not appear to have presented itself to Johnson, who, on the contrary, joined the group, and began chatting with them in what was evidently meant to be understood as an affable manner.
When they had approached within a mile of the place, the pirate skipper turned to Lance and asked him what he thought of the harbor, and whether he believed he could make it tolerably safe with a dozen guns or so.
“Harbour!” answered Lance, “I see no harbor,—no sign even of one on that part of the coast which we are now approaching. I can distinguish nothing but a rocky shore, against which the surf is breaking heavily enough to dash to pieces the strongest ship that was ever built. Perhaps the harbor lies somewhere beyond that low rocky point which forms the western extremity of the island? But if so, why not steer directly for it?”
“The entrance to the harbor is exactly in line with our jib-boom-end just now,” explained Johnson in high good-humour; “but I guess you would never know it unless you was told; would you, colonel?”
“That indeed I should not,” answered Lance; “and even now I scarcely know how to believe you.”
Lance might well say so, for the whole coast-line in front of them presented an apparently unbroken face of rocky cliffs of various heights, from about thirty to two hundred feet, backed by grassy slopes thickly dotted with dense clumps of trees of various kinds, many of which glowed with the most brilliant tints from the flowers with which they were loaded. Immediately ahead, where Johnson had said the entrance to the harbor lay, a great irregular mass of low jagged rocks projected slightly beyond the general face-line of the cliffs, and behind it was a gap which had the appearance of being caused by the projecting mass of rock having at some remote period broken away and slipped into the sea. The brig, however, continued to stand on boldly, and when she had arrived within about three cables’-lengths of the shore, it became apparent that the large mass of rock ahead, or rather on the lee bow by this time, the brig having luffed a trifle, was entirely detached from the island, leaving a narrow channel of water between it and the cliffs
behind it. But it was not until the brig had actually borne away to enter this channel that the entrance to the harbor revealed itself. Then indeed it was seen that the cliff behind, instead of preserving an unbroken face, curved inwards in the form of a cove, the eastern and western arms of which consisted of two projecting reefs jutting out toward the mass of rock in front of them, which in its turn now revealed its true shape, which was that of a crescent, the horns of which overlapped the two projecting reefs forming the eastern and western sides of the harbor-entrance, and acted as a perfect natural breakwater, effectually protecting the harbor itself in all weathers.
Winding her way through the short narrow channel between the rock and the cliffs, the brig hauled sharply round the western point and shot into the cove or harbor itself, which consisted of an irregularly-shaped expanse of water some two hundred acres in extent. At the entrance the rocks on both sides sloped steeply down into the deep blue water; but further in they were fringed along their bases by a beautiful white sandy beach which widened as it approached the bottom of the bay, the land on each side sloping more gradually down to the water, and finally spreading out, where the water ceased, into a broad and lovely valley which stretched inland some three miles, rising gradually as it receded until it became lost among a group of hills which formed the background of the picture.
At anchor in the bay were three hulks, no doubt the three prizes spoken of by Johnson as destined to be broken up for the building of the new craft; and on the grassy plateau at the bottom of the bay and close to the beach stood two large buildings and some half a dozen smaller ones, all constructed of wood. Behind these, a plot of ground, some two acres in extent, was fenced in to form a garden, and a very fruitful one it proved too, if one might judge by the luxuriant growth apparent in its various products. Corn of two or three kinds waved on the eastern slopes, half a dozen head of cattle and perhaps a couple of dozen sheep grazed on the opposite side of the valley; cocoa-nuts reared their tall slender stems and waved their feathery branches by hundreds, and behind them again as the ground sloped gently upward it became more and more densely covered with palm, banana, and plantain groves thickly interspersed with various trees, some of considerable size and dense foliage, among which brilliant orchids and gaudy parasites of the gayest hues entwined themselves to the very summits.
The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales Page 306
