Chapter Two.
How we lost her.
The sun was just sinking below the horizon, his parting beams lighting up gorgeously a heavy bank of clouds which hung low down in the western quarter, when the lookout man aloft hailed, “A sail on the weather bow!”
Everybody was instantly on the alert.
“What do you make her out to be?” hailed Mr Sennitt, the first lieutenant; while the skipper turned to me and said,—
“Mr Chester, be good enough to slip down into my cabin, and bring up my telescope, if you please.”
As I made a dive down the companion, I heard the lookout hail again: “She is a large lugger, sir; I can make her out quite plainly; she is just in the wake of the sun.”
“All hands make sail,” was the next order, given as quick as lightning.
I got the glass, and hurrying on deck with it, placed it in the skipper’s hands. The men were by this time lying out on the yards, shaking a couple of reefs out of the topsails, and loosing the courses. Captain Brisac slung the telescope over his shoulder, and, springing into the rigging, made his way aloft to the crosstrees, where the lookout still sat, with one hand grasping the topgallant shrouds, and the other shading his eyes. The skipper braced himself firmly against the topmost head, raised the telescope to his eye, and took a good long look at the stranger, closed the glass sharply, and descended to the deck again with all the agility of a monkey—or a midshipman.
“She is a lugger, sure enough; and a large one too,” he remarked, as he rejoined the first lieutenant. “There can be no doubt that she is French; and I have a strong suspicion that she is a privateer on the lookout for some of our homeward-bound vessels. I do not think they have made us out yet; when I saw her she was jogging easily along under her fore and mizzen lugs and a small jib. If she does not see us within the next five minutes, the chances are that she will not make us out at all until the moon rises, which will not be for quite another hour; by which time I hope we shall have drawn pretty close up to her.”
The lookout was hailed from time to time, to inquire whether the lugger had made any more sail or not; and each time the cheering reply was, “Not yet, sir.” At length the reply was, “It is too dark to see her now, sir; but she had not when I lost sight of her.”
The brig was now tearing along under single-reefed topsails, courses, fore-topmast staysail, jib, and spanker, her lee side buried deep in the foaming brine, and the sea coming bodily in over her bows by tons at a time. She no longer rose lightly over the opposing waves, but dashed headlong into them; rushing forward upon her way like a startled courser.
Every night-glass in the ship was brought into requisition by the eager officers, in their endeavours to catch an occasional glimpse of the stranger; but the night had settled down pitchy dark, the sky having rapidly become obscured by a thick veil of clouds immediately after the disappearance of the sun below the horizon, so that not so much as a solitary star was visible; all efforts to get a sight of the chase were consequently quite in vain. So dark was it that, standing by the taffrail, it was impossible to see as far as the bows of the ship. Not a light of any description was permitted on board the “Scourge;” even the binnacle lights were carefully masked, and Captain Brisac soon began to manifest a great deal of anxiety at the risk which he was undoubtedly incurring in thus driving his ship at racing speed through the thick darkness, without a warning light of any description to indicate her presence to other craft. He contented himself, however, with placing five of the sharpest-sighted men on the lookout; namely, one on the flying-jibboom-end, one on each cat-head, and one on each of the fore-yardarms.
The bearings of the chase had of course been very accurately taken the last thing before losing sight of her, when she was estimated to be ten miles distant, and about two points on the weather bow, going along upon an easy bowline.
The “Scourge” was an exceedingly smart little brig under her canvas; and when the additional sail had been set and every brace, sheet, tack, and bowline trimmed with the utmost nicety, it was the general opinion that she was going a good honest eleven knots. The chase was thought to be travelling at the rate of four knots at most; it was hoped, therefore, that when the moon rose we should find ourselves within three or four miles of her.
The suspense, which we were compelled to endure as best we might, caused the time to drag heavily on; at length, however, a brightening of the sky in the eastern quarter proclaimed the welcome approach of the moon. Slowly—very slowly—the brightness increased, the veil of cloud breaking up before it, and revealing the sky beyond, all luminous with silvery radiance. A few more anxious minutes, and the round white disc of the moon rose slowly upwards into view, flinging a broad path of light across the tumbling billows, and gleaming pale and ghostly on the sails of the lugger, which now appeared directly ahead of us, and about five miles distant.
Instantly every glass in the ship was levelled at the chase; and a general exclamation of annoyance arose, as, while still engaged in taking their first long look at her, the pursuers observed a sudden fluttering of canvas about the mainmast which speedily resolved itself unmistakably into a lofty well-set mainsail.
“Ah!” ejaculated the skipper, stamping his foot impatiently on the deck, “they evidently have sharp eyes on board yonder lugger; they must have seen us the moment that the moon rose.”
“Yes,” returned the first lieutenant, with his eye still glued to his glass; “and the sharp eyes appear to belong to an equally sharp crew; they are shaking out their reefs fore and aft and shifting their jib, all at the same time. Depend upon it, sir, we shall have to work for that craft before we get her.”
“We shall catch her, Mr Sennitt, never fear,” was the cheery response; “she cannot be above half our size, and will have no chance with us in such a breeze as this. And I do not anticipate that she is any more heavily armed than we are, though she may possibly carry a few more men. Her skipper will of course escape if he can! and when he finds that impossible, he will, equally of course, fight, and very likely fight well. Still, I do not think we shall have much difficulty in taking him.”
“In the meantime, however,” remarked Sennitt, who had his glass constantly at his eye, “unless I am greatly mistaken, he is gradually creeping away from us; his rigging does not show out as plainly as it did ten minutes ago, yet there is more light.”
Another long and anxious observation of the chase by both officers followed; and, imitating their example, I also brought my glass to bear upon the flying craft. Flying she literally seemed to be rather than sailing. At one moment her hull was completely hidden by an intervening wave-crest, her sails only being visible; the next she would rush into view, her low hull deluged with spray which glanced in the moonlight like a shower of diamonds as it flew over her almost to the height of her low mast-heads and dissipated itself in the sea to leeward; while her masts bent like willow wands, inclining at what seemed to me a fearfully perilous angle with the horizon.
“Upon my word, Sennitt, I fear you are right,” at last said the skipper, bringing his glass reluctantly down into the hollow of his arm. “Let us lay our glasses aside for half an hour, we shall then be better able to judge which ship is gaining upon the other, and if we find that we are losing ground, there will be nothing for it but to shake the remaining reef out of our topsails, and get the flying-jib on her; our spars are good, and the rigging new; both ought to be quite capable of standing a little extra strain.”
“It will be rather a risky business to increase the strain already laid upon the spars,” said the first lieutenant, glancing anxiously aloft at the topmasts, which were springing and buckling at every plunge of the ship, with the enormous pressure of the tightly distended topsails; “still it is perhaps worth trying; it would be a fine feather in our caps if we could send into port the first prize of the war.”
The stipulated half-hour passed away; and at the end of that period the unwelcome conviction forced itself upon every one that the lugger was having the best of it.
“There is no help for it, Mr Sennitt,” said the skipper, “shake that reef out of the topsails, and set the flying-jib; she must bear it.”
Excited by the exhilarating influence of the chase, the hands sprang aloft with the utmost alacrity, and in an incredibly short space of time had the reel out and the topsails distended to their fullest extent; the flying-jib flapped wildly in the wind for a moment or two, and then yielded to the restraint of the sheet, at which it tugged as though it would tear away the cleat to which it was secured.
The effect of these additions to the before heavy pressure of canvas upon the ship was immediate, and, to my inexperience, highly alarming. The brig now lay over upon her side to such an extent that it was with the utmost difficulty I could retain my footing upon the steeply-inclined and slippery plane of the deck. The lee sail was completely buried in the sea, which boiled in over the lee bow and surged aft along the deck like a mill-race; while ever and anon an ominous crack aloft told of the severity of the strain upon the overtaxed spars.
Mr Sennitt kept glancing uneasily upward, as these portentous sounds smote upon his ear; which Captain Brisac observing, he turned to the first lieutenant and said,—
“Do not be alarmed, Sennitt; it is only the spars settling into their berths; they—”
Crash! I sprang instinctively aft to the taffrail, out of the way of the wreck, and then looked up to see both topmasts, snapped off like carrots just above the caps, go swooping over to leeward, to hang by their rigging under the lee of the courses; while the ship, with a sharp shock, as though she had touched upon some unseen rock, recovered herself and floated once more upon an almost even keel.
Captain Brisac was much too gentlemanly to swear. He simply turned to the first lieutenant and said, “We have rather overdone it this time, Sennitt; however, it is no use crying over spilt milk, so turn the hands up, please, and let them clear away the wreck, and repair damages as soon as possible.”
The boom of a distant gun told us that the crew of the lugger had not been unobservant of our misfortune, and that they were willing to expend a charge of powder in acquainting us with their exultation thereat.
By daybreak next morning we had everything ataunt again; the chase, however, had run completely out of sight, hours before, and was, at all events for the present, hopelessly lost to us.
The wind had gone down very considerably during the night, and had hauled round to about due north; the sea went rapidly down; the sky was cloudless and intensely blue; the air became keen and frosty; and when the sun rose, it found us standing to the westward under topgallant-sails, without a single sail of any kind in sight.