Leonard Lindsay ;

by Angus B. Reach

‘Tush, Pedro,’ said Captain Garbo,’ you fell asleep, man, and dreamed you saw a ghost. You deserve to be dipped alongside, just to waken you.’

But at that moment we all started, for suddenly there came over the water a loud crash, as of two ships meeting, followed all at once by a crackling volley of musketry, which glanced bright through the darkness, gleaming in fiery streaks over the black oily-looking water, and then, mingling with the reports of the fire-arms, a great hearty cheer, such as Englishmen give when they leap upon the decks of an enemy. By the flashes we saw that one of the largest and heaviest laden of the pearl barks had been laid aboard by a very long low-built boat with three raking masts, like those of the vessels which the French call chasse-marées, and moved by a number of great sweeps, which extended from her sides like the long legs of some huge insect of the sea.

‘The Pirates! the Buccaneers!’ screamed all our crew together, and they rushed to haul down our lantern, so that we might the better escape in the darkness. In the meantime, there was a great crashing and scuffling, with heavy plunges in the water, as though men had leaped or been thrown overboard, and then, in the course of a moment, there was again silence, and the light of the captured vessel, for such no doubt she was, disappeared. But on board of the rest of the fleet there sprang up, as you may conceive, the strangest uproar. Instead of hauling down their lights, as we had done, in less than a minute the sea was all a-fire with the infinity of lanterns and torches which they waved and flashed from rigging and deck, while such a clamour of shouts, blowing of trumpets and conch shells, beating of drums, and firing of muskets and pistols, I never heard. It appeared, indeed, as if the pearl fishers imagined that they would drive away their enemy by making a noise and hallooing; all this, however, was done, Captain Garbo said, to alarm the convoy; but, truly, they must have kept sleepy watch aboard of her, if they did not hear the tumult of the first attack. But in the meantime the great ship was aroused—a flash of red flame gleamed from out her sides, showing for a moment boats full of men surging in the water beneath, and her sails falling in great white patches from her yards, as she prepared to give chace to the enemy. But these broad sails were useless; not a reef point rattled against the canvas in the great stillness of the night; but we heard the dash of oars and distant shouts as the boats of the frigate pulled away from her among the fleet. Meantime, the din on board the different barks subsided, but we could see the crews as they ran to-and-fro upon the decks, still carrying torches and lanterns, while every minute or two the frigate fired a great gun, for what purpose I know not, only that it seems as if Spaniards, like Frenchmen, seldom think they are doing anything if they be not making a noise. But where, meanwhile, was the Buccaneer rowboat, or galley? I strained my eyes through the darkness in the direction in which I had seen her. Could she be an Englishman, I thought to myself, and, if so, would it be possible for me to board her? A light canoe floated alongside our bark, on which my eye fell as these ideas rose up in my mind. But, when I reflected a minute, I saw how mad would be any attempt to make my way in the darkness, and amid pursuing boats, to the vessel, even although she might be, what I had no certain means of knowing her—a friend.

While I was pondering thus, Captain Garbo accosted me in a whisper—

‘This is but a mad freak of your countrymen,’ he said, ‘for such I judge them to be. They could not expect to carry off the bark from the middle of a fleet, and without a breath of wind either.’

Just as he spoke, a jagged flash of lightning, which dazzled me, tore right across the sky to the westward, and the loud crackling thunder had not ceased to explode above us, when a heavy puff of wind, bearing broad plashing rain-drops before it, struck our bark, and made her swing round to her anchor like a weathercock.

‘A squall,’ I cried out, ‘and the privateer knew it was coming. It was that made them so bold.’

Just then a whole row of lanterns was run up to the gaff of the great ship.

‘See,’ said Garbo—‘a squall indeed. That is the signal for the recal of all her boats.’

There was nothing which appeared to me very ominous in the look of the night. I only expected a pretty sharp outburst of wind and rain with thunder and lightning. And so, indeed, it proved, for in less than five minutes from the first flash, a strong gusty wind, driving before it a pelting rain, was whitening the sea around us, and hissing and whistling through the few ropes which formed our rigging, while the bark herself tore and plunged at her anchor, as if she would have wrenched it out from its hold amid the oysters. In a moment the flaming torches, shown from so many of the fleet, were blown out or quenched; but the great ship, burning a bright light in her main rigging, we saw her all lurid and blue in the glare, leaning heavily over to the blast, her slanting yards dotted with the seamen, who were taking in sail as fast as they had spread it forth. In a few minutes again all around was darkness, except where the glimmer of a lantern, tossing and tumbling as though a giant were flinging it from hand to hand, showed where one of the Pearl Fleet was jerking and straining at her anchor. The strength of the squall was not alarming, but it tore up the sea upon these shallow banks into quick cross-running and angry waves, and the rain was driven in our faces so sharply that the drops struck like hailstones.