Chapter Fifteen.
We sail in search of the pirate.
Having received my dismissal from the admiral, I returned to the Francesca, and, summoning the purser, gave him instructions to overhaul his stores and prepare a requisition for everything necessary to complete for a two months’ cruise. Then, sending for the boatswain, gunner, and carpenter, I in like manner instructed them to overhaul the hull, spars, standing and running rigging, and the contents of the magazine, and to report to me all defects or shortage of stores in their respective departments, and, generally, to prepare the little craft in every way for the task that lay before her. Then, there still remaining a couple of hours of daylight, I jumped into the gig again and pulled aboard four vessels that had arrived during the day, for the purpose of enquiring whether any of them had sighted or fallen in with the disabled brig. As was to be expected, I met with no success, but I was not in the least disappointed, for I had anticipated no other result; indeed I calculated that the ordinary slow-sailing merchantman who might perchance fall in with the pirate could scarcely be expected to reach Kingston until at least three or four days after the Francesca. Then, availing myself of the very pressing invitation that I had received from my new friend Mr Todd, I made my way to his house, where I spent a most delightful evening with him and his family. Upon learning that I expected to remain a full week in port, these good people at once proceeded to plan for my benefit a number of pleasure jaunts to places of interest in the neighbourhood; but I was far too profoundly impressed with the importance of the task assigned to me, and the responsibility that rested upon my young shoulders, to avail myself of their very great kindness further than to spend an evening or two with them.
I divided my time pretty evenly between the schooner—personally seeing that no detail was overlooked in preparing her for her important task—and the various craft that arrived in the port from day to day. Keene, eager to assist, undertook to penetrate, in mufti, the lower and more disreputable parts of the town, and to haunt the wharves upon the chance of picking up some small item of information relating to the mysterious brig which might prove of service to us. But all our efforts availed us nothing, for on the eighth day after our arrival we were no better off than we had been at the beginning. I contrived, however, to filch the few hours that were necessary to enable me to go up for my examination, with the result that I passed with flying colours, so the examiners were kind enough to say. My good friend Sir Timothy at once confirmed my acting order and presented me with the commission which bestowed upon me the rank of lieutenant in his Most Gracious Majesty’s navy.
On the evening of the eighth day after our arrival at Port Royal I went ashore to report to the admiral the discouraging fact that I had failed utterly to obtain any information whatever from any of the inward-bound ships relative to the piratical brig, for none of them, apparently, had sighted the craft. Moreover, Jack Keene’s enquiries were practically as unsuccessful as my own; for although he had encountered one or two doubtful characters frequenting the low taverns near the wharves, who seemed to have some knowledge of such a vessel, it was all vague hearsay, and quite valueless. But although we had failed so entirely to obtain any information, the ship’s company had been kept busily at work, with the result that the schooner was now as perfect in every item and particular of hull and equipment as human hands could make her. I therefore wound up my report with the statement that we were ready for sea, and could sail at literally a moment’s notice.
“So much the better,” remarked the admiral, “and, since there is nothing to be gained by further delay, you had better make a start forthwith, so that you may be able to work your way out through the channel and secure an offing before nightfall. Now, have you formed any plans for the conduct of this cruise?”
“Only those of the most general character, sir,” replied I. “According to my reckoning the brig is by this time very nearly, if not quite, at the rendezvous, where she will refit. I fear, therefore, that there is not much likelihood of my falling in with her for some time to come—until she has refitted and is once more at sea, in fact. But, in order that I may not throw away a possible chance, my idea is to stretch out toward the middle of the Caribbean, and, having arrived there, to work to windward over the track that the brig would have to follow if she were making her way toward the head of the Gulf. Then, if I fail to fall in with her, it may be worth our while to overhaul the Grenadines—there must be several small islands among them well adapted as a rendezvous for a pirate, and there is just a possibility that we may find her there. Failing that, I do not see that I can do anything else than work out clear of the islands and haunt the ground where the tracks of the inward- and outward-bound trade meet, since it seems to me that that is the spot where we are most likely to find the brig when she resumes operations.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed the old gentleman, approvingly. “You have thought out the identical scheme that suggested itself to me, and I hope that by following it you will succeed in laying the fellow by the heels. Speak every craft that you may fall in with, make enquiries whenever you have the chance, and perhaps you may be lucky enough to pick up a slaver or two, and so make the cruise a profitable one in a double sense; for if that surmise of yours should happen to be correct, that this pirate brig is the identical craft that stole the slaves from your prize—the Dolores—and afterwards destroyed her, the fellow may have played the trick on other slavers, in which case they will be glad enough to give any information that may lead to his capture. And now the sooner that you are off the better, for you will have none too much daylight in which to work out clear of the shoals. So, good-bye, my lad, and good luck to you! Take care of your ship, your crew, and yourself, and bring the fellow back with you as a prize.”
So saying, with a hearty handshake the old gentleman dismissed me, and a quarter of an hour later the saucy little Francesca, in charge of a pilot, was turning to windward on her way out to the open sea.
The sea breeze lasted us just long enough to enable us to clear the shoals and handsomely gain an offing of about three miles. Then it died away and left us wallowing helplessly in the heavy swell that was running. Meanwhile the sun sank beneath the horizon in one of those blazes of indescribable glory of colour which seem to be peculiar to the West Indies. The darkness closed down upon us like a shutter, and the stars leapt out of the rapidly darkening blue overhead with that soft, lambent, clarity of light which is never beheld save in the tropics. Then, after tumbling about uncomfortably for nearly an hour, we felt the land breeze, and, squaring away before it, soon ran off into the true breeze of the trade wind.
The following three weeks passed uneventfully in carrying out the first part of the programme upon which Sir Timothy and I had agreed, including a very careful but fruitless search of the entire group of the Grenadines, between Grenada and Saint Vincent. After this we proceeded toward the spot which was to be our cruising ground, and called at the little town of Kingstown, in the latter island, for a few hours, in order to replenish our supplies and lay in a stock of fruit.
Thus far we had been favoured with splendid weather, but on the fifth day out from Saint Vincent I observed that the barometer and the wind were falling simultaneously, and by sunset the trade wind had died away to nothing. The western half of the sky looked as though it were on fire, and the horizon in that quarter was piled high with great smears of dusky, smoky-looking cloud, heavily streaked with long splashes of vivid orange and crimson colour. As a spectacle it was magnificent, but the magnificence was gloomy, sombre, and threatening beyond anything that I had ever beheld. Nevertheless, I had seen skies not altogether unlike it before, and my experience had taught me that such gorgeously lurid displays of colour always portended the approach of bad weather, very frequently of the hurricane type. Furthermore, my “Sailing Directions for the West Indies” warned me that we were now in a part of the world which is subject to such terrific outbreaks of atmospheric strife. I therefore resolved to take time by the forelock. Fortunately in such small craft as schooners the amount of work involved in the operation of “snugging-down” is not great, and in less than half an hour we had got our yards and topmasts down on deck and the whole of our canvas snugly stowed, with the exception of the foresail, which, having been close-reefed, remained set, so that we might retain some sort of command over the vessel.
Meanwhile the calm continued, but although the regular swell showed some disposition to subside, a heavy cross-swell was rapidly rising, which caused the schooner to plunge and roll in a jerky, irregular manner, and with such violence that at length it became almost impossible to stand without holding on to something, while to attempt to move about became positively dangerous. To add still further to the unpleasantness of the situation, the little hooker was constantly shipping water so heavily over her rail, bows, and taffrail that we were frequently up to our knees in it, although all the ports had been opened to allow it to run off.
We contrived to complete all our preparations before it became too dark to see; and it was well for us that we did so, for when the darkness came it was a darkness that might be felt, for it was as though we were hemmed in by great black walls which might be touched by merely stretching forth one’s hand, while the heat of the stagnant atmosphere was so oppressive as to cause the perspiration to pour from us in streams. This disagreeable state of affairs continued without break of any kind until about five bells in the first watch, when a cry of astonishment and alarm broke from the watch on the forecastle-head at the sudden appearance on the bowsprit of a ball of light of a sickly greenish hue, which I immediately recognised as a corposant, although I had never seen one before, but had frequently heard them spoken of and described. It was certainly a weird and uncanny sight to behold under such circumstances, and was well-calculated to strike awe into the minds of superstitious seamen, both from the suddenness and the mystery of its appearance, and from its ghostly and unnatural aspect as it poised itself out there on the end of the spar, clinging tenaciously thereto, and alternately flattening and elongating as it swayed in unison with the violent movements of the schooner. And while the men were still gaping at it, open-mouthed, its sickly radiance faintly illuminating their faces and causing them to wear the horrible aspect of decomposing corpses, two others appeared, one on each of the lower mast-heads. For perhaps two minutes, or it might have been a little longer, these last two ghostly lanterns swayed and lengthened and contracted with the wild plungings of the little craft. Then the one on the foremast-head let go its hold and went drifting away astern until it was lost to sight, while the one on the mainmast-head came gliding down the spar until it reached the flooded deck, and vanished as though extinguished by the washing of the water. While this was happening, the corposant on the bowsprit-end also let go its hold and came floating inboard along the spar, causing a regular stampede of the watch, who incontinently came rushing aft as far as the mainmast, to get out of the way of their uncanny visitor, which, however, vanished as it reached the knightheads.
“Ah,” remarked the gunner, who had charge of the watch, “that means that we’re in for a heavy ‘blow’, sir! I’ve seen them things often enough afore, and I’ve always noticed that when any of ’em comes inboard, like them two, extra bad weather is sure to foller. I partic’larly remembers a case in p’int when I was up the Mediterranean in the old Melampus. We was—”
“Listen!” I broke in unceremoniously, as a low, hoarse murmur became audible above the voice of the gunner, the monotonous swish and splash of the water across the deck and in over the bulwarks, and the creaking and groaning of the ship’s timbers. “Surely that is the wind coming at last!”
At the same moment a gust of hot air came screaming and scuffling over us, square off the starboard beam, causing the foresail to fill suddenly with a report like that of a gun, and careening the schooner to her covering board.
“Hard up with your helm, my man; hard up, and let her pay off before it!” I shouted to the man at the helm, while the sound that I had heard increased rapidly in volume, and a long line of white foam, rendered luminous by the phosphorescent state of the water, appeared broad on our starboard beam, sweeping down upon us with appalling velocity. Fortunate was it for us that a preliminary puff had come to help us, for it lasted just long enough to permit the little hooker to gather steerage way and partially to pay off, far enough, that is to say, to bring the onrushing hurricane well over her starboard quarter. Indeed, had the gale happened to strike us square abeam, and with no way on the ship, I am convinced that she must have inevitably turned turtle with us. As it was, when, a few minutes later, the wind swooped down upon us with the fury of a famished wild beast leaping upon its prey, and with a mad babel of terrifying howls and shrieks that utterly baffles description, the little vessel heeled down beneath its first stroke until her lee rail was buried, and the water rose to the level of her hatchway coamings; and but for the fact that she was at that moment not only forging ahead, but also paying off, there would have been an end of all hands, then and there. For what seemed to be, in our anxious condition, a veritable age, but which was probably no more than a brief half-minute, the little vessel lay there, quivering in every timber, and seemed paralysed with terror, as though she were a sentient thing. The wind yelled and raved through her rigging, and the spindrift and scud-water—showing ghostly in the phosphorescent light emitted by the tormented waters—flew over us in blinding, drenching showers. Then, with a sudden jerk the schooner rose almost upright and, with the water foaming about her bows to the level of her head rails, she sped away to leeward at a pace that seemed absolutely impossible to even so swift a craft as she had proved herself to be.
We scudded thus before the gale for nearly an hour, when, availing ourselves of a temporary lull in its fury, we brought the schooner to the wind and hove her to on the starboard tack; but, even then, so tremendous was the force of the wind that, although she showed to it nothing but a close-reefed foresail, the little vessel was buried to the level of her rail.
So violent was the first swoop of the hurricane that the surface of the ocean was as it were crushed flat by it, and the slightest irregularity that presented itself was instantly torn away and swept to leeward in the form of spray. Thus for the first hour or so it was impossible for the sea to rise. At the end of that time, however, the tormented ocean began to assert itself, and, although their crests continued to be torn off by the violence of the wind, the seas steadily rose and gathered weight, until by midnight the little Francesca, was being hove up and flung about as violently as a cork upon the surface of a turbulent stream. And now another of the schooner’s many good qualities revealed itself, for, despite the furious violence of both wind and wave, the little craft rode the raging seas as buoyantly and as daintily as a sea gull, and shipped not so much as a spoonful of water, excepting, of course, such as flew on board in the form of spray. Even of that small quantity we had very little after the schooner had been brought to the wind, for the tremendous pressure of the gale upon her spars and rigging, and upon the small area of her close-reefed foresail laid her over at so steep an angle, and caused her to turn up so bold a weather side, that most of the spray flew clean over her and was swept away to leeward.
The temporary lull in the gale, of which we had taken advantage to heave-to the schooner, lasted only just long enough to enable us to accomplish that manoeuvre. It was well for us that we availed ourselves so promptly of the opportunity, for no other occurred; on the contrary, after that brief lull the gale seemed to increase steadily in fury to such an extent, indeed, that at length I felt that I should not have been in the least surprised had the schooner been blown bodily out of the water and whirled away to leeward like an autumn leaf.
Needless to say, that night was one of intense anxiety to me, for the responsibility for the safety of the schooner, and all hands aboard her, rested entirely upon my shoulders. I had already done all that was possible in the way of precaution, while I felt that, despite the magnificent behaviour of the little craft, an exceptionally heavy sea might at any moment catch her at a disadvantage and break aboard her, in which event she would most probably founder out of hand. So great, indeed, was my anxiety that I found it impossible to quit the deck for a moment, although my subordinates were thoroughly steady, trustworthy men, and had far more experience than myself. With the men forward it was totally different. Their minds were thoroughly imbued with the seaman’s maxim: “Let those look out who have the watch,” and those whose watch it was below turned in without the slightest hesitation or qualm of anxiety, trusting implicitly to those in charge of the deck to do everything that might be necessary to ensure the safety of the ship.
To me it seemed as though that terrible night would never end, and even when at length the hour of dawn arrived there was no perceptible amelioration in the conditions. The darkness remained as intense as it had been at midnight, and it was not until eight bells—in this case eight o’clock in the morning—that a feeble glimmer of daylight came filtering through the opaque blackness of the firmament over our heads, dimly revealing the shapeless masses of flying cloud and scud, and permitting us to view our surroundings for a space of about a quarter of a mile. But, contracted as was our view, it was more than sufficient to impress us with a deep and overwhelming sense of the impotence of man in the presence of God’s power as manifested in this appalling demonstration of elemental fury. Now, even more than during the hours of darkness, did we appear to be constantly on the point of being lifted out of the water by the terrific strength of the wind. As often as the schooner was hove up on the summit of a sea, and thus exposed to the full force of the hurricane, we could feel her tremble and perceptibly lift when the wind struck her beneath her upturned bilge. As for the sea, I had never seen anything like it before, nor have I since. When people desire to convey the idea of an exceptionally heavy sea they speak of it as running “mountains high”. In the case of which I am now speaking the expression appeared to be no exaggeration at all, for as wave after wave came sweeping down upon us with uplifted, menacing crest, looking up to that crest from the liquid valley in front of it seemed like gazing up the side of a mountain which was threatening to fall upon us and crush us to atoms. Indeed, the wild upward sweep of the schooner, heeling almost to her beam ends as she was flung aloft upon the breast of the onrushing wave, was an experience terrifying enough to turn a man’s hair grey. Yet, after watching the movements of the schooner for about half an hour, and noting how, time after time, when the little barkie seemed to be trembling on the very brink of destruction, she unfailingly came to in time to avoid being overwhelmed, I grew so inured to the experience that I found myself able to go below and make an excellent breakfast with perfect equanimity.
It was about five bells in the forenoon watch, and it had by that time grown light enough for us to discern objects at a distance of about a mile, when, as the schooner was tossed aloft to the crest of an exceptionally gigantic wave, Simpson—whose watch it was—and I simultaneously caught sight for a moment of something that, indistinctly seen as it was through the dense clouds of flying scud-water, had the appearance of a ship of some kind, directly to windward of us. The next instant we lost sight of it as we sank into the trough between the wave that had just passed beneath us and that which was sweeping down upon us. When we topped this wave soon afterwards, we again caught sight of the object, and this time held her in view long enough to identify her as a large brigantine, hove-to, like ourselves, on the starboard tack, under a storm-staysail. Unlike ourselves, however, she had all her top-hamper aloft, forward, and seemed to be making desperately bad weather of it. The glimpses that we caught of her were of course very brief, and at comparatively long intervals, for it was only when both craft happened to be on the summit of a wave at the same moment that we were able to see her. Yet two facts concerning her gradually became clear to us, the first of which was that she was undoubtedly a slaver—so much her short, stumpy masts and the enormous longitudinal spread of her yards told us,—the second was that she was steadily settling down to leeward at a more rapid rate than ourselves, as was only to be expected from the fact that she was exposing much more top-hamper to the gale than we were. It would not be long, therefore, before she would drive away to leeward of us, probably passing us at no very great distance.
Now, although we were fully convinced that the craft in sight was a slaver, yet we had no thought whatever of attempting to take her just then, for the very simple reason that to do so under the circumstances would be a manifest impossibility. In such an awful sea as was then running we could only work our guns at very infrequent intervals and with the utmost difficulty, while, if we were to hit her, we would do so only by the merest accident. And even if we could contrive by any means to compel her to surrender to us, we could not take possession of her. Our interest in her was therefore no greater than that with which a sailor, caught in a heavy gale, watches the movements of another ship in the same predicament as his own.
Meanwhile, by imperceptible degrees she was steadily driving down toward us, until at length she was so close, and so directly to windward of us, that I almost succeeded in persuading myself that there were moments when I could catch, through the strong salt smell of the gale, a whiff of the characteristic odour of a slaver with a living cargo on board. Nor was I alone in this respect, for both Simpson and the man who was tending the schooner’s helm asserted that they also perceived it. But now a question arose which, for the moment at least, was even more important than whether she had or had not slaves aboard, and that was whether she would pass clear of us or not. She had settled away to leeward until she had approached us to within a couple of hundred yards, and as the two craft alternately came to or fell off it alternately appeared as though the stranger would pass clear of us ahead, or fall off and run foul of us. The moment had arrived when it became necessary for one or the other of us to do something to avert a catastrophe; and as those aboard the brigantine gave no indication of a disposition to bestir themselves I ordered Simpson to have the fore-staysail loosed and set, intending to forge ahead and leave room for the other craft to pass athwart our stern. The fore-staysail sheet was accordingly hauled aft, and four men laid out on the bowsprit to loose the sail. This was soon done, and then, when we next settled into the trough of the sea, and were consequently becalmed for the moment, the halyards were manned and the sail hoisted. The brigantine was by this time so dangerously near to us that, even when we were both sunk in the trough of the sea, it was possible for us to see her mast-heads over the crest of the intervening wave, and I now kept my eye on these with momentarily increasing anxiety, for it appeared to me that we were in perilous proximity to a hideous disaster. And then, as the schooner swept upward on the breast of the oncoming wave, I saw the spars of the brigantine forging slowly ahead as the ship to which they belonged fell off, and my heart stood still and my blood froze with horror, for it became apparent that the two craft were sheering inward toward each other, and that nothing short of a miracle could prevent the brigantine from falling foul of and destroying us. For as her spars rose higher into view I saw that her people, too, had set their fore-staysail, and that the two craft, impelled by their additional spread of sail, were rushing headlong toward each other.
