CHAPTER XVI
AS soon as they had drifted some little distance from the Serapis, O'Neill rose, threw off the boat cloak, and stepped aft around the oarsman to the stern-sheets of the boat, where Elizabeth sat motionless, holding the tiller. He knelt down before her.
"Elizabeth, dearest, we have actually escaped!" he said softly, stooping toward her. "I did not think it possible." She released the tiller, took his head in her hands, and kissed him in wild exultation.
"Free! Free!" she murmured, "and together--my own, my own!" Her words, her look, her caress, set his blood bounding again.
"Yes, yes; is it not heavenly, and with you. Oh, my soul, how can I repay you?" he whispered, giving back kiss for kiss, and stretching out his hands toward her. There was a little pause, broken by a rough voice, which its owner evidently tried to render more gentle; in a hoarse whisper the man at the oars asked,--
"Where are ye a-headin' of the boat, yer Leddyship?"
"I know not!" she answered wildly, seizing the tiller again; "only away from that awful ship!"
"Who is this man at the oars?" asked her lover, rising and sitting down by her when he took the tiller from her nervous hands.
"Well, yer Honor," said a low, deep voice, with a smothered laugh in it, "my name ashore, w'ere I was left by Cap'n Jones t'other night to look arter you, mought be Smith, or Brown, or any old name; but yere in this boat it's Price--William P. Price--w'ich is wot my mother told me, at any rate, though I ain't got no evidence but her word fur it, an' she's dead, an' God be thanked I see yer Honor alive."
"Price! You!" exclaimed O'Neill, in great surprise. "How did you find him, dearest?"
"I found her, please yer Honor," replied the man. "I seed her Leddyship a-comin' down to the beach, an' I ups and captures a small boat from the English, w'ich the man'll be awful disappinted like, w'en he don't find her to-morrow, an' then I ups and offers to take her off, an' I tells her I knows you, an' we fixed it up, and here y'are!"
They were not yet so far from the Serapis, even by this time, but that the quick ear of the girl detected the confusion on her decks: the shrill piping of the boatswain and his mates, the sharp commands of the officers, the trampling of many feet, were easily heard; she clutched her lover nervously, all alert at the thought of a possible further danger to him.
"Oh!" she whispered, "they are doing something on the ship. Our escape is discovered. They will come after us!"
"Not with the whole ship," he answered, smiling, though listening with straining apprehension as well.
"I think they're a-gittin' under way, sir," said the old seaman. "Listen to the clankin' o' the pawls, yer Honor."
"You are right; it cannot be after us, though; a cutter or two would suffice for that."
"It'll be fur the Richard an' the rest of 'em. Cap'n Jones, he said he'd capture them ships afore the mornin' watch, an' if you wasn't hung afore that time, he'd trice up the whole d--n--w'ich I beg pardon, yer Leddyship, but he said it--crowd to the yard-arms, unless they'd let you go free! Our wessels ought to be a-comin' up from Flamburry putty soon, now. But if I mought make so bold, w'ere are ye headin' fur now, sir?"
"We head for the Richard, of course," said the young man, promptly.
"That's w'ere we b'long," said the sailor, joyfully; "I don't want no fightin' goin' on, an' I ain't there!"
"Nor I," replied O'Neill. "I would put you ashore, Elizabeth, before we go; but--"
"'Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people,'" she quoted softly. "Whom have I now but you? To whom can I go but to you?" she murmured, laying her hand upon his own. It was dark on the boat, but if it had been broad daylight he could not have helped it,--he kissed her.
"Oh, to be worthy of it all, to be worthy!" he answered.
William grinned sympathetically, wiped his mouth wistfully with the back of his hand, and tried to look away. Presently, unshipping the oars, the two men stepped the mast and hoisted the small sail. The little boat, under the freshening breeze, began to draw through the water rapidly. In order to win out of the mouth of the harbor, they would have to pass in a direction which would bring them once more near the moving Serapis. They could hardly hope to escape discovery. They had, of course, gained a good start on the frigate; but as she was soon covered with sails, and her great height enabled her to catch the freshening breeze blowing over the hills, which was lost to the smaller craft, she literally rushed down upon them.
A noble picture she made to those on the boat. Ghostlike and eerie in the pale moonlight, shining fitfully through the overcast heavens, the great white ship towered above them, her soaring masts covered with clouds of snowy canvas stretching far out on either side on the spreading yard-arms. Her sails swept the skies; her keel ploughed the deeps; the wind sang in the top-hamper; the white water, shot with sparks, piled up in front of her, bubbled and played around her forefoot, and rolled away on either side in broad sheets of foamy phosphorescence. The yellow lights of the battle lanterns streamed through her open ports; a drum was grimly rolling the call to battle on her decks. Dark forms passed to and fro; men leaped hither and thither in casting loose the double row of great black guns; sometimes a vivid flash in the moonlight proclaimed a drawn sword. Presently the cries and orders died away; the men settled down at their stations; silently the huge fabric, a splendid example of that power which for twice two hundred years had ruled the seas, swept toward them. O'Neill watched her in generous admiration.
"A fit antagonist even for our great captain," he cried, all his enthusiasm aroused by the ship, "and nobly handled," he added. "Mark the discipline; see the order!"
"Ay, sir, that'll be a hard one to take; but we'll take her, never fear!" said the old seaman, sharing his officer's ungrudging approbation of their gallant foe.
"How can you speak so?" said the girl. "To me she is nothing but a prison--a menace--a horror!"
"You are a woman, dearest; I hope to be on the old Richard before long, and I feel from such a ship as that there is much honor to be gained."
"And death, too," she answered, shuddering.
"It may be; death and honor often go hand in hand," he replied gravely; "but she nears us; you must lie down until she passes."
It was a new thing for her to be commanded; she found it altogether a sweet experience--then. Later it might be another matter. So, though protesting because she was a woman and had prescient eye to the future, Elizabeth dutifully obeyed her lord and lay down in the boat, resting her head against his foot. As they drew toward the mouth of the harbor the wind came stronger. The little boat fairly roared through the white-capped waves. She heeled over until the water trickled in on the lee side; but O'Neill resolutely and skilfully held her up to it. He could not afford to lose an inch of distance to leeward, for the water shallowed rapidly in that direction, and abounded in rocks as well. The Serapis was alongside now; they had not yet been observed. The attention of the men on the frigate was fixed upon the approaching ships to the southeast, now plainly visible. O'Neill fairly held his breath as he congratulated himself that they were to be passed by unnoticed. Suddenly a sharp cry rang out just as the Serapis drew ahead.
"Sail ho! Boat ahoy, there!" For a moment the small boat lay right in the path of light cast by the brilliantly illuminated stern-ports of the frigate.
"'Tis the prisoner, he that escaped!" shouted a powerful voice.
"Sentry, give him a shot from your piece," cried Captain Pearson himself, springing on the rail and leaning over toward them. Old Price shook his fist at the frigate in stout defiance. The sharp crack of a musket rang out in the air. The bullet seemed to have struck something forward in the boat; a shudder swept through the little craft, a hoarse, frightful cry quivered through the night, there was splash, the boat struck something, and that something, whatever it was, rasped along her keel as she drove ahead.
"Clear away the second cutter," cried another voice on the frigate.
"Keep all fast!" shouted Pearson. "We have bigger game to-night," and then he hollowed his hand and cried out as the Serapis drew rapidly away,--
"We'll take care of you, sir, in the morning, when we return." A few more musket-shots were fired at them from different parts of the ship; one bullet tore through the sail and whistled by the ear of the young lieutenant, but did no harm.
"We are saved again!" cried Elizabeth, sitting up and looking gratefully at her lover.
"But not without a cost," said the young man, solemnly.
"What mean you? Are you hurt; are you wounded?" she cried.
"Price!" called O'Neill, softly, though he knew it was useless. There was no answer.
"Oh, that awful cry!" said Elizabeth, shuddering.
"It was he," added O'Neill, gravely. "He was hit by the first shot, and went overboard. Did you not feel him strike the keel?"
"Is there no hope for him?" she queried anxiously. "Could we not put back and seek him?"
"None," replied the young lieutenant, shortly. "There was death in his voice; it's all over with him. Well, he died in the line of his duty; 'tis a sailor's cherished hope."
"He helped me--both of us--in time of need; our way to liberty and happiness," she cried piteously, "seems to be over the bodies of those who love us."
"So it has ever been in the world,--a thousand deaths to make one life, a thousand griefs to make one joy," he answered, laying his hand tenderly upon her head, which she had buried in her hands.
"But what come what may," she added, looking up resolutely, with all the selfishness of love, "I have you, at least, and we are together again."
"Ay, let us pray it may be forever, sweetheart."
They were out of the harbor now; and while the Serapis was stretching along to the northeast to gain an offing, with the Scarborough some distance ahead of her, and to leeward, the lighter draft of the small boat permitted O'Neill to head her directly for the oncoming American ships, whose lights, and the ships themselves, were now plainly visible in the moonlight.