The Pilot

by James Fenimore Cooper

  Tom caught Dillon in his arms; and throwing him, like a cork, across his shoulder, he dashed into the streak of foam that was bearing the boat on its crest, and before his companion had time for remonstrance or entreaty, he found himself once more by the side of Barnstable.

  "Who have we here?" asked the lieutenant; "this is not Griffith!"

  "Haul out and weigh your grapnel," said the excited cockswain; "and then, boys, if you love the Ariel, pull while the life and the will is left in you."

  Barnstable knew his man, and not another question was asked, until the boat was without the breakers, now skimming the rounded summits of the waves, or settling into the hollows of the seas, but always cutting the waters asunder, as she urged her course, with amazing velocity, towards the haven where the schooner had been left at anchor. Then, in a few but bitter sentences, the cockswain explained to his commander the treachery of Dillon, and the danger of the schooner.

  "The soldiers are slow at a night muster," Tom concluded; "and from what I overheard, the express will have to make a crooked course, to double the head of the bay, so that, but for this northeaster, we might weather upon them yet; but it's a matter that lies altogether in the will of Providence. Pull, my hearties, pull—everything depends on your oars to- night."

  Barnstable listened in deep silence to this unexpected narration, which sounded in the ears of Dillon like his funeral knell. At length, the suppressed voice of the lieutenant was heard, also, uttering:

  "Wretch! if I should cast you into the sea, as food for the fishes, who could blame me? But if my schooner goes to the bottom, she shall prove your coffin!"

  Chapter XXIV

  *

  "Had I been any god of power, I would

  Have sunk the sea within the earth, ere

  It should the good ship so have swallowed."

  Tempest.

  The arms of Dillon were released from their confinement by the cockswain, as a measure of humane caution against accidents, when they entered the surf; and the captive now availed himself of the circumstance to bury his features in the folds of his attire, when he brooded over the events of the last few hours with that mixture of malignant passion and pusillanimous dread of the future, that formed the chief ingredients in his character. From this state of apparent quietude neither Barnstable nor Tom seemed disposed to rouse him by their remarks, for both were too much engaged with their own gloomy forebodings, to indulge in any unnecessary words. An occasional ejaculation from the former, as if to propitiate the spirit of the storm, as he gazed on the troubled appearance of the elements, or a cheering cry from the latter to animate his crew, alone were heard amid the sullen roaring of the waters, and the mournful whistling of the winds that swept heavily across the broad waste of the German Ocean. There might have been an hour consumed thus, in a vigorous struggle between the seamen and the growing billows, when the boat doubled the northern headland of the desired haven, and shot, at once, from its boisterous passage along the margin of the breakers into the placid waters of the sequestered bay, The passing blasts were still heard rushing above the high lands that surrounded, and, in fact, formed, the estuary; but the profound stillness of deep night pervaded the secret recesses, along the unruffled surface of its waters. The shadows of the hills seemed to have accumulated, like a mass of gloom, in the centre of the basin, and though every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was in vain that the anxious seamen endeavored to discover their little vessel through its density. While the boat glided into this quiet scene, Barnstable anxiously observed:

  "Everything is as still as death."

  "God send it is not the stillness of death!" ejaculated the cockswain. "Here, here," he continued, speaking in a lower tone, as if fearful of being overheard, "here she lies, sir, more to port; look into the streak of clear sky above the marsh, on the starboard hand of the wood, there; that long black line is her maintopmast; I know it by the rake; and there is her night-pennant fluttering about that bright star; ay, ay, sir, there go our own stars aloft yet, dancing among the stars in the heavens! God bless her! God bless her! she rides as easy and as quiet as a gull asleep!"

  "I believe all in her sleep too," returned his commander. "Ha! by heaven, we have arrived in good time: the soldiers are moving!"

  The quick eye of Barnstable had detected the glimmering of passing lanterns, as they flitted across the embrasures of the battery, and at the next moment the guarded but distinct sounds of an active bustle on the decks of the schooner were plainly audible. The lieutenant was rubbing his hands together, with a sort of ecstasy, that probably will not be understood by the great majority of our readers, while long Tom was actually indulging in a paroxysm of his low spiritless laughter, as these certain intimations of the safety of the Ariel, and of the vigilance of her crew, were conveyed to their ears; when the whole hull and taper spars of their floating home became unexpectedly visible, and the sky, the placid basin, and the adjacent hills, were illuminated by a flash as sudden and as vivid as the keenest lightning. Both Barnstable and his cockswain seemed instinctively to strain their eyes towards the schooner, with an effort to surpass human vision; but ere the rolling reverberations of the report of a heavy piece of ordnance from the heights had commenced, the dull, whistling rush of the shot swept over their heads, like the moaning of a hurricane, and was succeeded by the plash of the waters, which was followed, in a breath, by the rattling of the mass of iron, as it bounded with violent fury from rock to rock, shivering and tearing the fragments that lined the margin of the bay.

  "A bad aim with the first gun generally leaves your enemy clean decks," said the cockswain, with his deliberate sort of philosophy; "smoke makes but dim spectacles; besides, the night always grows darkest as you call off the morning watch."

  "That boy is a miracle for his years!" rejoined the delighted lieutenant. "See, Tom, the younker has shifted his berth in the dark, and the Englishmen have fired by the day-range they must have taken, for we left him in a direct line between the battery and yon hummock! What would have become of us, if that heavy fellow had plunged upon our decks, and gone out below the water-line?"

  "We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our metal and kentledge would have taken us down," responded Tom; "such a point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and not even left the marines time to say a prayer!—tend bow there!"

  It is not to be supposed that the crew of the whale-boat continued idle during this interchange of opinions between the lieutenant and his cockswain; on the contrary, the sight of their vessel acted on them like a charm, and, believing that all necessity for caution was now over, they had expended their utmost strength in efforts that had already brought them, as the last words of Tom indicated, to the side of the Ariel. Though every nerve of Barnstable was thrilling with the excitement produced by his feelings passing from a state of the most doubtful apprehension to that of a revived and almost confident hope of effecting his escape, he assumed the command of his vessel with all that stern but calm authority, that seamen find is most necessary to exert in the moments of extremest danger. Any one of the heavy shot that their enemies continued to hurl from their heights into the darkness of the haven he well knew must prove fatal to them, as it would, unavoidably, pass through the slight fabric of the Ariel, and open a passage to the water that no means he possessed could remedy.—His mandates were, therefore, issued with a full perception of the critical nature of the emergency, but with that collectedness of manner, and intonation of voice, that were best adapted to enforce a ready and animated obedience. Under this impulse, the crew of the schooner soon got their anchor freed from the bottom, and, seizing their sweeps, they forced her by their united efforts directly in the face of the battery, under that shore whose summit was now crowned with a canopy of smoke, that every discharge of the ordnance tinged with dim colors, like the faintest tints that are reflected from the clouds towards a setting sun. So long as the seamen were enabled to keep their little bar
k under the cover of the hill, they were, of course, safe; but Barnstable perceived, as they emerged from its shadow, and were drawing nigh the passage which led into the ocean, that the action of his sweeps would no longer avail them against the currents of air they encountered, neither would the darkness conceal their movements from his enemy, who had already employed men on the shore to discern the position of the schooner. Throwing off at once, therefore, all appearance of disguise, he gave forth the word to spread the canvas of his vessel, in his ordinary cheerful manner.

  "Let them do their worst now, Merry," he added; "we have brought them to a distance that I think will keep their iron above water, and we have no dodge about us, younker!"

  "It must be keener marksmen than the militia, or volunteers, or fencibles, or whatever they call themselves, behind yon grass-bank, to frighten the saucy Ariel from the wind," returned the reckless boy; "but why have you brought Jonah aboard us again, sir? Look at him by the light of the cabin lamp; he winks at every gun, as if he expected the shot would hull his own ugly yellow physiognomy. And what tidings have we, sir, from Mr. Griffith and the marine?"

  "Name him not," said Barnstable, pressing the shoulder on which he lightly leaned, with a convulsive grasp, that caused the boy to yield with pain; "name him not, Merry; I want my temper and my faculties at this moment undisturbed, and thinking of the wretch unfits me for my duty. But, there will come a time! Go forward, sir; we feel the wind, and have a narrow passage to work through."

  The boy obeyed a mandate which was given in the usual prompt manner of their profession, and which, he well understood, was intended to intimate that the distance which years and rank had created between them, but which Barnstable often chose to forget while communing with Merry, was now to be resumed. The sails had been loosened and set; and, as the vessel approached the throat of the passage, the gale, which was blowing with increasing violence, began to make a very sensible impression on the light bark. The cockswain, who, in the absence of most of the inferior officers, had been acting, on the forecastle, the part of one who felt, from his years and experience, that he had some right to advise, if not to command, at such a juncture, now walked to the station which his commander had taken, near the helmsman, as if willing to place himself in the way of being seen.

  "Well, Master Coffin," said Barnstable, who well understood the propensity his old shipmate had to commune with him on all important occasions, "what think you of the cruise now? Those gentlemen on the hill make a great noise, but I have lost even the whistling of their shot; one would think they could see our sails against the broad band of light which is opening to seaward."

  "Ay, ay, sir, they see us, and mean to hit us too; but we are running across their fire, and that with a ten-knot breeze; but, when we heave in stays, and get in a line with their guns, we shall see, and it may be feel, more of their work than we do now; a thirty-two an't trained as easily as a fowling-piece or a ducking-gun."

  Barnstable was struck with the truth of this observation; but as there existed an immediate necessity for placing the schooner in the very situation to which the other alluded, he gave his orders at once, and the vessel came about, and ran with her head pointing towards the sea, in as short a time as we have taken to record it.

  "There, they have us now, or never," cried the lieutenant, when the evolution was completed. "If we fetch to windward off the northern point, we shall lay out into the offing, and in ten minutes we might laugh at Queen Anne's pocket-piece, which, you know, old boy, sent a ball from Dover to Calais."

  "Ay, sir, I've heard of the gun," returned the grave seaman, "and a lively piece it must have been, if the straits were always of the same width they are now. But I see that, Captain Barnstable, which is more dangerous than a dozen of the heaviest cannon that were ever cast can be, at half a league's distance. The water is bubbling through our lee scuppers, already, sir."

  "And what of that? hav'n't I buried her guns often, and yet kept every spar in her without crack or splinter?"

  "Ay, ay, sir, you have done it, and can do it again, where there is sea- room, which is all that a man wants for comfort in this life. But when we are out of these chops, we shall be embayed, with a heavy northeaster setting dead into the bight; it is that which I fear, Captain Barnstable, more than all the powder and ball in the whole island."

  "And yet, Tom, the balls are not to be despised, either; those fellows have found out their range, and send their iron within hail again: we walk pretty fast, Mr. Coffin; but a thirty-two can cut-travel us, with the best wind that ever blew."

  Tom threw a cursory glance towards the battery, which had renewed its fire with a spirit that denoted they saw their object, as he answered:

  "It is never worth a man's while to strive to dodge a shot; for they are all commissioned to do their work, the same as a ship is commissioned to cruise in certain latitudes: but for the winds and the weather, they are given for a seafaring man to guard against, by making or shortening sail, as the case may be. Now, the headland to the southward stretches full three leagues to windward, and the shoals lie to the north; among which God keep us from ever running this craft again!"

  "We will beat her out of the bight, old fellow," cried the lieutenant; "we shall have a leg of three leagues in length to do it in."

  "I have known longer legs too short," returned the cockswain, shaking his head; "a tumbling sea, with a lee-tide, on a lee-shore, makes a sad lee-way."

  The lieutenant was in the act of replying to this saying with a cheerful laugh, when the whistling of a passing shot was instantly succeeded by a crash of splintered wood; and at the next moment the head of the mainmast, after tottering for an instant in the gale, fell towards the deck, bringing with it the mainsail, and the long line of topmast, that had been bearing the emblems of America, as the cockswain had expressed it, among the stars of the heavens.

  "That was a most unlucky hit!" Barnstable suffered to escape him in the concern of the moment; but, instantly resuming all his collectedness of manner and voice, he gave his orders to clear the wreck, and secure the fluttering canvas.

  The mournful forebodings of Tom seemed to vanish with the appearance of a necessity for his exertions, and he was foremost among the crew in executing the orders of their commander. The loss of all the sail on the mainmast forced the Ariel so much from her course, as to render it difficult to weather the point, that jutted, under her lee, for some distance into the ocean. This desirable object was, however, effected by the skill of Barnstable, aided by the excellent properties of his vessel; and the schooner, borne down by the power of the gale, from whose fury she had now no protection, passed heavily along the land, heading as far as possible from the breakers, while the seamen were engaged in making their preparations to display as much of their mainsail as the stump of the mast would allow them to spread. The firing from the battery ceased, as the Ariel rounded the little promontory; but Barnstable, whose gaze was now bent intently on the ocean, soon perceived that, as his cockswain had predicted, he had a much more threatening danger to encounter, in the elements. When their damages were repaired, so far as circumstances would permit, the cockswain returned to his wonted station near the lieutenant; and after a momentary pause, during which his eyes roved over the rigging with a seaman's scrutiny, he resumed the discourse.

  "It would have been better for us that the best man in the schooner should have been dubb'd of a limb, by that shot, than that the Ariel should have lost her best leg; a mainsail close-reefed may be prudent canvas as the wind blows, but it holds a poor luff to keep a craft to windward."

  "What would you have, Tom Coffin?" retorted his commander. "You see she draws ahead, and off-shore; do you expect a vessel to fly in the very teeth of the gale? or would you have me ware and beach her at once?"

  "I would have nothing, nothing, Captain Barnstable," returned the old seaman, sensibly touched at his commander's displeasure; "you are as able as any man that ever trod a plank to work her into an offing; but, sir, when th
at soldier-officer told me of the scheme to sink the Ariel at her anchor, there were such feelings come athwart my philosophy as never crossed it afore. I thought I saw her a wrack, as plainly, ay, as plainly as you may see the stump of that mast; and, I will own it, for it's as natural to love the craft you sail in as it is to love one's self, I will own that my manhood fetched a heavy lee-lurch at the sight."

  "Away with ye, ye old sea-croaker! forward with ye, and see that the head-sheets are trimmed flat. But hold! Come hither, Tom; if you have sights of wrecks, and sharks, and other beautiful objects, keep them stowed in your own silly brain; don't make a ghost-parlor of my forecastle. The lads begin to look to leeward, now, oftener than I would have them. Go, sirrah, go, and take example from Mr. Merry, who is seated on your namesake there, and is singing as if he were a chorister in his father's church."

  "Ah, Captain Barnstable, Mr. Merry is a boy, and knows nothing, so fears nothing. But I shall obey your orders, sir; and if the men fall astarn this gale, it sha'n't be for anything they'll hear from old Tom Coffin."

  The cockswain lingered a moment, notwithstanding his promised obedience, and then ventured to request that:

  "Captain Barnstable would please call Mr. Merry from the gun; for I know, from having followed the seas my natural life, that singing in a gale is sure to bring the wind down upon a vessel the heavier; for He who rules the tempests is displeased that man's voice shall be heard when he chooses to send his own breath on the water."

  Barnstable was at a loss whether to laugh at his cockswain's infirmity, or to yield to the impression which his earnest and solemn manner had a powerful tendency to produce, amid such a scene. But making an effort to shake off the superstitious awe that he felt creeping around his own heart, the lieutenant relieved the mind of the worthy old seaman so far as to call the careless boy from his perch, to his own side; where respect for the sacred character of the quarter-deck instantly put an end to the lively air he had been humming. Tom walked slowly forward, apparently much relieved by the reflection that he had effected so important an object.