A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A CRUISE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT.
s I stood there, not knowing what to do, I saw the fingers of a man come over the edge of the cabin window; then a face appeared, and, seeing who it was, I leaned forward and laid hold of the carpenter by the back of his shirt to help him. He murmured something inarticulate, and I saw the reason why he could not get in through the window. He had his cutlass in his teeth, and I had to relieve him of it and do some powerful hauling before I had him inside lying on his back on the cabin deck. I closed my hand over his mouth, and bending my head close to his, whispered: "Hush for your life! There's a sleeping man within touch of us!"
But now the hilt of another cutlass appeared at the window. I took it, and enjoining silence on those below in the boat, the carpenter and I hauled in another man. We must have made some noise, but the deep breathing went on undisturbed until every man jack of us had come in through that window. But it was no place to hold a consultation. With my finger to my lips, I stepped to the passageway, took down the lantern from its hook, and came back with it. The sleeper was snoring, and we saw that he was in a bunk behind a half-closed curtain. And now the reason for his sound rest was apparent; as we pulled aside the cloth, ready to jump on him if he made a sound, we smelt the strong odor of rum, and perceived that the man had clasped in his arms a big black bottle, much in the way a child in a cradle might fall asleep with a doll.
"You can't wake him," said the carpenter, who was called "Chips" by the crew, and if I had not stopped him, I think he would have tweaked the sleeper's nose.
"One of you stay down here and guard him," I said. "Mr. Chips, you and those three men close the forward hatch. I and these five men will take care of the man at the wheel and the watch. Now, steady! Make no noise!"
They followed me out to the little passageway that led to the foot of the ladder, and I went up it softly. I saw but two moving figures on deck—a man forward leaning with both elbows on the rail, and aft, the binnacle light reflecting on the face of an old sailor with a growth of long white whiskers; his eyes were half closed, and his fingers were grasped tightly around the spokes. Followed by the three men I had detailed, I jumped up on deck. The old seaman at the wheel made no outcry, for danger was probably the last thing he had in his mind. (He took us for some of the crew, I found out afterwards.) When he looked at the pistol that I pointed at his head, however, his jaw dropped, and without a word his legs gave way and he sat down backwards on the deck.
In the mean time the carpenter had clapped a pistol to the head of the man leaning over the rail, two others found sleeping on the forward deck were held quiet in the same manner, and I heard the slam of the hatch with satisfaction.
I had command of the brig, without a word having been spoken above a breath.
I say I had command of the brig right enough, but there was to be a little trouble, after all, which came near to putting me out of the game altogether; but of that later.
In obedience to the plan, the side lights had been extinguished, the yards swung about, the helm put down, and we were steering northeast by east according to the compass.
I was standing by the man at the wheel, trembling with the agitation of pent self-congratulation. I would have given a great deal to have relieved my feelings by a cheer.
"Who are you? Pirates?" said a shaking voice at my side. I looked around. There stood the old sailor with his knees half bent, as if they refused to straighten.
"We're Yankee privateersmen," I said, grinning at him.
"Much the same thing," he muttered—"pirates! What are you going to do with us?"
"Treat you kindly, if you make no noise," I answered, rather amused than otherwise.
This appeared to relieve the old man greatly. The carpenter now came aft.
"I've bucked and gagged the men I found on deck," he said. "You don't want to heave them overboard, do you?" he added, chuckling.
"No!" I answered, quickly.
I had no time to find out whether the man was joking or not in asking this, for a flash of red fire tore out against the darkness less than a mile astern of us. Then a crash reached our ears. Some more flashes and reports in criss-cross, and then a burst of flame so bright that I could make out the outlines of a vessel from her lower yards to the water!
"By the great sharks, Mr. Hurdiss," cried the carpenter, "old Smiler has run afoul of a frigate, and no less! That's the end of him."
As we learned afterwards, that broadside was the end of poor Captain Gorham, and the tight little Yankee also. But we soon had affairs of our own to look after, and I myself had my hands full.
The report of the first shot had caused something of a commotion below. I heard the sound of a cry and an oath, and rushing to the head of the companion ladder, I was almost knocked down by a great man who came up it on the jump. He was bleeding from a gash the full length of his face, but I recognized him as the one who had been asleep in the berth below.
"Demons! Devils!" he shrieked, and avoiding my grasp, he jumped for the side, and went overboard head first, with a wild, unearthly scream.
I knew that a struggle must have taken place in the cabin, and calling the carpenter to follow me, I jumped down the steps, and here is where the unexpected happened. The lantern I had left there had been extinguished. All was pitch dark, but I could hear a faint groaning to the right. I felt along the passageway with my hand, and as I extended it I touched something that moved. At the same moment my wrist was caught in a tight grasp and a hand fumbled up my chest as if reaching for my throat.
"Who are you?" said a voice, in unmistakable English accents.
For reply I laid hold of the reaching hand, and thus the strange man and I stood there close together. I could not reach my pistol, or I would have shot him dead.
"Who are you?" he repeated, hoarsely.
I said nothing, but endeavored to wrench my hand free. The man, at this, began to shout.
"Ho, Captain Richmond, mutiny!" he cried, and threw his whole weight upon me, as if to bear me down. "Ho, Richmond! You drunken fool, the men have risen!" he roared again.
I had wrestled with many of my fellow-prisoners at Stapleton, but I had never been against such a man as this heretofore. I almost felt my ribs go as he grasped me, but I got my hip against him, and we came down together, completely blocking up the passageway. I fumbled for my pistol, but could not reach it, and taking me off my guard, the man shifted his grasp to my throat. I tried to evade it, but it was too late. I caught him by both wrists, and for a second managed to keep his thumbs from choking me.
"Get a light! A light!" I cried.
I had got my knee wedged in the pit of the man's stomach, and was pushing him with all my might, but even with this and the aid of my hands I could not break away. Gradually my breath stopped, lights flashed and danced before my eyes. I could feel my chest heaving as if my heart would come out of my body; then it seemed to me I heard an explosion far above me, and I knew no more.
When I drifted back to the sense of knowing that I was alive, it took me some minutes to gather the strings of my mind and haul in my ideas. At first I could not have told who I was, and for a long time my whereabouts were a puzzle to me. It might be the first question of any one to whom I should tell this to ask why I did not speak, and thus find out the condition of affairs. But let me assure you I was doing my best to form words and sentences, and the only result was a whistling, wheezing sound in my throat. My voice was gone! At last I found strength to raise my hand, and I felt that I was in a box of some kind, and this puzzled me still more until I heard voices talking to one side of me, and I recognized Chips, the carpenter, saying:
"It was a quick funeral, Dugan. And how is the young gentleman?"
Then the whole situation came back to me clearly, and I knew where I was and all about it. I put out my other hand this time, pulled aside the curtains, and it was as I supposed; they had placed me in one of the cabin-bunks; it was the very one, by-the-way, in which the drunken Captain had been sleeping.
"Well, sir," said the carpenter, "so you've come back to join us? It isn't every one who's been so near the great gate and returned."
I tried to answer something, and it must have been an odd sight to have seen me sitting there dizzy and swaying, working my mouth without a sound forth-coming. Something was choking me. At last I made a motion; they understood that I wished a drink of water, and Dugan went to fetch it for me. It pained me much to swallow or to move my head; I can truly sympathize with any man who has been hanged.
They had put something in the drink, however, that made me feel a bit stronger, and I motioned for Chips to come close to me.
"Have we come about?" I whispered.
"Yes, Captain," he replied, nodding his head and smiling encouragement, the way one addresses an invalid. "We came about some time ago, and are now holding a course southwest-by-south-half-south. Is that right, sir?"
I nodded. All I knew was that if we held this course long enough we would fetch up somewhere on the coast of the United States.
But the man's addressing me as "Captain" pleased me. Yes, surely, I was the prize-master of the brig, and the men looked to me to manage her. But I did not even know her name as yet, and there were many things that I wished to find out. So, taking Chips's arm, I made a sign telling him that I wished to go on deck.
The cabin had been lighted by the lantern hanging above our heads. As we went down the passageway I saw that another light was coming from a small door that opened into a little closetlike space which contained two bunks. A horn lantern was suspended from the deck beam, and a man with his head bound up in a bloody cloth was in the lower bunk.
"It's Fisher, the man we left guarding the drunken skipper," said Chips. "He was struck on the head with a bottle."
We were at the foot of the ladder, and I saw that it was from this place that the man with whom I had had the struggle had emerged. It was right here where I was standing that we had been fighting, and it was there we lay. I looked down and saw that the passageway had been lately slushed out, for a sopping squilgee had been tossed in the corner.
"Where is he?" I asked.
The carpenter shrugged his shoulders. I understood with a shudder, and did not repeat the question. What was the use?
By the motion of the vessel I knew that the wind must be light, and glancing up as I came to the top of the ladder, I saw that the carpenter was well up in his business, and that in him I had an able lieutenant.
The brig had every stitch of canvas set, and despite the fact that she was very old-fashioned and bluff in the bows, we were making good headway, and rolling out two rippling waves that seethed and tumbled on either side of us.
It would soon be dawn. The sky was growing light in the east, and the glow was spreading every minute, so that I judged it must be in the neighborhood of four o'clock in the morning. I sat down on the edge of the cabin sky-light and rested my elbows on my knees; and in that attitude I gave thanks that my life had been spared, and prayed that strength would be given to me to meet any danger that might come before me.
The dawning of a day is a very beautiful and holy thing to watch, especially at sea, with the red edge of the sun creeping slowly up against the horizon, and the expanding sense that one feels in his soul at the world's awakening. Had I a gifted pen, I should love to describe the sight I have seen so often—the growing of color in the water, from black to gray, from gray to green and blue; the red-tipped clouds, and all—but I shall not attempt it; I should fail. Even this day I noticed the beauty of it, but I began to worry about my throat (I was in great pain again), and wondered whether the pressure of the man's fingers had destroyed my larynx. But if I had lost power of speech, I knew that the carpenter would carry out my intentions, and that he probably could give the orders in much better fashion than I could. So it was not necessary for me to borrow trouble, although I hated to think of whispering for the rest of my existence.
HE LEANED HIS FACE OVER THE HOLE AND SHOUTED.
Suddenly I thought of the prisoners penned in the forecastle, and I approached the carpenter, who was chatting with the man at the wheel, and asked him about them—whether he had held converse with them, and how many were they. He informed me that there were eight fore-mast hands and the second and third mates cooped up below, and that the only way they could get out was through the forward hatch, which he had nailed down. I walked to the bow with him, and saw that he had cut a square hole in the middle of the hatch cover big enough to admit air and to permit of talking with those below. He leaned his face over the hole and shouted:
"Below there, ye Johnny Bulls! How fares it?"
The reply was a chorus of cursing. But at last one man succeeded in hushing the others, and I could hear his words distinctly. He spoke with a strong Scotch burr.
"Who are ye? Where are ye takin' us?" he asked.
"We're Yankees," answered Chips, "and you know that right well. We're taking you for a trip to the land of liberty. If you behave yourselves, and stop your low talk and your blaspheming, you'll have your breakfast soon. We're Christians."
There was no further conversation, and at this instant I was seized with a hemorrhage from my throat, and the carpenter insisted upon my turning in in the cabin, which I was not loath to do, as moving about seemed to start the blood in my throat. I went below, and lay there all the morning, suffering not a little. They brought me food, but I was unable to swallow it; but when I fell asleep at last, I was awakened in a few minutes, it seemed to me, by Chips touching me on the shoulder.
"It's near meridian, Captain Hurdiss," he said. "Hadn't you better take a squint at the sun? The wind is getting up a bit too, sir," he said, "and the glass has fallen."
I endeavored to get my feet, but the motion started the trouble in my throat, and I fell back, weakly.
"Never mind; you'd better keep to your bunk," the carpenter said. "To-morrow you'll be up and about, I'll warrant. I'll leave this bottle for you, sir."
I detected an anxious look in his face as he handed me a glass of water and spirits. Again I fell asleep, and awoke some time late in the afternoon, feeling much better.
The brig had a great motion on her, and every plank and timber was groaning and creaking. I took a sip out of the bottle, which was wedged in the corner of the bunk, and although it scalded and burned me, it seemed to give me strength, and I crawled out, and stumbling to the foot of the ladder, made my way up on deck. The sky had grown black and angry. We were on the starboard tack under reefed topsails, and everything was wet with flying spray. The Duchess of Sutherland, for that was the brig's name, belonged to an era of shipbuilding when they believed that every breeze must blow over a vessel's stern, I should think. The way she kept falling off was a caution. She appeared to go as fast sideways as she did ahead, and such a pounding and thumping as she made of it I have never seen equalled. Most of the crew were on deck, and one of them, a fine seaman named Caldwell, saw me standing holding on to the hatch combing. He came up, touching his forehead in salute.
"She's a bug of a ship, Captain Hurdiss," he said.
I nodded, and glanced up at the aged time-seamed masts.
"It won't pay to carry much more sail, sir," the man said, as if in suggestion.
I beckoned him to put his head close to mine, and gave an order to take in the foresail, for it was holding us back more than helping us. The man bawled out the order, and jumped with the rest to obey it. I felt so weak that once more I sought the cabin. I took a glance at the barometer as I went by, and saw that it was still falling; that we were in for a hard blow or a storm I did not doubt.
But the rolling and tumbling increased, and the groaning and complaining of the timbers led me to believe that the old craft was working like a basket, which was exactly what she was doing. Suddenly she gave a lurch so hard and sharp to port that I was almost spilled out of the berth, and fear giving me strength, I crawled up on deck on all fours. The man at the wheel was doing his best to bring the brig's head up in the wind, the jib had blown out and was tearing into streamers, the men in the forecastle were working away at something, and I heard a wail from the prisoners below.
It looked as if we were bound to capsize, but at this moment the topsail blew out of the bolts and we righted. But the storm was upon us; the tops of the seas blew off and scudded along the surface like drifting snow; there was a fiendish howling in the rigging. I motioned with my hand for the helmsman to swing her off. He understood, and soon we were before it, scudding under bare poles toward the north. But even then the Duchess made bad weather of it, yawing and plunging badly. Dugan, whom I had appointed second mate, came up to me.
"It's safer to run, Captain," he said, shouting in my ear. "Go below, sir; Chips and I will keep the deck."
As I could be of no use, I took his advice, and crawled into the bunk again, trying to assure myself that all was well. It had grown very dark, although it was but seven o'clock, and I had lain there but a half-hour or so, when the carpenter came rushing in. Even in the dim light I could see the terror in his blanched face.
"Heaven help us, Captain!" he said. "I've just sounded the well, sir, and there's three feet of water in the hold!"