FOR KING OR COUNTRY.
A Story of the Revolution.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER VII.
AN UNINTENTIONAL VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY.
The tide ran so swiftly that at first it appeared to George that he did not gain an inch on the drifting boat, and the short choppy waves dashing against his face almost drove his breath away at times. The day when his brother William had saved him from drowning at Stanham Mills came back to him.
But surely he was drawing nearer! he could see the hull much more distinctly, and could hear the loose oars rolling across the thwarts.
Desperately he forged along; he was calling on his nerves, his vital force, for a last effort. In a moment more he reached the stern, and, placing his knee on the rudder, fell inside the boat.
To save himself he could not lift a finger now; he lay there perfectly conscious, sprawled in the stern sheets, his chest heaving, his head thrown back—played out in every muscle. It was fully half an hour before he moved, and when he did so the sense of his position came fully upon him.
All about reached the opaque white wall, and although a short time before it had been so warm, George now felt chilled—his teeth were rattling. This reminded him of the coats, and the letter in Carter's pocket that had nearly cost his life.
Getting on his knees he perceived to his astonishment that the boat was half filled with water, and that the coats were floating in it at his feet.
At once he set to work, and there being nothing else to use he took his hat and Carter's and baled with both hands.
This exercise warmed him, and started his blood and pulse going once again.
When the water had been put over the side, George wrung out the coats and drew the sail about his shoulders. But first he found the letter that had caused all the trouble. It was addressed, "To the Convention at White Plains," and in the corner was inscribed, "A plan to destroy the British fleet by means of floating barrels of gunpowder, suggested by Mason Hewes, Colonel III. N. J., Reg't of Foot."
"One of the Colonel's schemes," said George to himself. But this did not seem so important as a memorandum in Carter's hand, made on a slip of paper, and showing the disposition of the American forces on Long Island.
He tore up the latter, but Colonel Hewes's address to the convention he attached to a bit of iron that he found, ready at a moment's notice to drop it overboard.
"I haven't the least idea where I am," he remarked, "so I had best be content with being alive. Oh, if this abominable fog would only clear away!"
It had been quite late in the afternoon when the boys had left the little cove at the foot of Brooklyn Heights, and now the light that filtered through the mist was growing dimmer. The ebb was still on, for the boat was drifting slowly. Another half-hour passed.
"What is that?" exclaimed George, suddenly, for a lapping sound came to his ears; it was the noise of the little tide waves against the prow of a vessel at anchor—he had heard it often along the wharves. As he peered out with his face over the side he heard loud and distinct, almost above him, the rattle and click of a block and tackle.
"'Vast 'eeaving there," called out a voice, so close that George started. "Belay, you lubbers," called the voice again.
A strange odor filled the air, a smell compounded of so many things that it cannot be described. George knew it to be that of a crowded ship—the smell of a man-of-war.
"I must be right among them," he murmured.
All at once, so close to him that he could almost reach it with an oar, loomed a great black shape, and over his head extended the muzzles of a line of guns, and above them another, and still above, a third.
"A seventy-four!" said George, crouching down in the bottom of the boat beneath the sail.
Slowly he drifted past; he could see the white streaks on her sides, and hear snatches of songs and the hum of voices. At last he was directly beneath the bulging quarter galleries, and a voice called out,
"What's that below?"
"A boat, sir, adrift," some one answered, in gruff sailor tones.
"Any one in her, Quartermaster?" inquired the first again.
"Can't see, sir," was the reply.
"Tumble into the cutter, then, and take after her," came the order.
The shrilling of a boatswain's pipe followed, and the hoarse bawl, "All first cutters away," started George to action.
"Now for another swim," he said, as he passed the battle-ship's mighty stern. "The shore of Staten Island must be off there to the left."
He hove both coats into the water, and, taking Mr. Hewes's epistle in his teeth, lowered himself after them. He hated to sacrifice the spy-glass, but overboard it went with the rest.
He had taken but a few dozen strokes when the thrumming of oars sounded plainly, and he rolled over on his back to listen—the oars stopped.
"Cutter there!" came from the deck of the seventy-four. "Have you found that boat?"
"Ay, ay, sir," the cutter hailed in return. "There's nothing in it but a hat."
George smiled and struck out again. "That shore's a long ways off," he thought, after he had swum for some time steadily, and as he made this remark to himself his knee struck something hard; he dropped his feet to sound, and found that the water scarcely reached his waist.
Tired and faint, he waded up to a shelving beach and fell forward in the sand. But he could not stay there long, for he knew that Staten Island was overrun with English soldiers. He must find some place to hide.
The fog had lessened, but it was growing dark. A ship's bell struck the hour, and the sound was taken up by a hundred others in a chorus of clanging and ding-donging out in the mist.
George walked up the beach. The water's edge was littered with débris from the fleet—baskets and empty boxes, crates, and drift-wood of all sorts. Something caught his eye, and he stooped and picked up a stout-handled boat-hook.
"Some poor fellow got the rope's end for losing this," he said. "It may come in handy for me." He shouldered it and walked quickly away. A few rods further on he came across a narrow pier or causeway that ran from the bank above the beach to a boat-landing some distance out.
There was just room for a man to crawl underneath. George stooped on his hands and knees and worked his way in as far as he could with comfort. Then he half buried himself in the dry sand. Tired with his two long swims and with the excitement of the last few hours, he went to sleep. But it was not for long. Suddenly he awoke—a great fear was on him. Why had he not thought of it before? Had Carter reached the shore? George had heard no sound from him after he had turned to speak of leaving the paper in the boat.