The sailor hero

by F. C. Armstrong

An hour afterwards the Babet was at anchor. As nothing of any consequence occurred during the forty-eight hours they remained in Gibraltar, and as Mr. O’Loughlin was not allowed a refit, the Commander on the station thinking he was quite in a condition to make the voyage to England, he again got under weigh, having spent a few hours, however, in escorting his fair guests over the lions of the place.

Two days after leaving Gibraltar, the weather became very bad, so much so, that both the Captain and our hero doubted the power of the Babet, under her thin rig, to save herself from being blown ashore on the coast of Spain. However, with a slight change in the weather, they safely entered the Bay of Biscay, though, owing to the violence of alternate westerly and northerly gales, much too close in with the French coast for their liking. The weather had been so thick, squally, and bitterly cold up to this time, that the ladies were forced to keep below; and but once, indeed, from the period of leaving Gibraltar, were they able to walk the deck. It was the month of January, and they could expect nothing else. One night the wind fell, but a heavy sea and a thick fog still prevailed—thick as during the two previous days. Just at daybreak a very light breeze sprung up from the nor’-west, and, as the fog lifted a little, our hero, who was on the watch, thought he perceived, as he was looking out over the weather quarter, something dark, that loomed like the hull of a craft, amid the vapour. He called the attention of the quarter-master, who was standing near him, to the object, but the fog again grew dense, and obscured their view; but so satisfied was William that what he had seen was the hull of a vessel, that as they were on dangerous ground, he roused his Commander, who had lain down half-dressed. He jumped up in a moment, knowing how sharp and quick the young midshipman’s eyes were, and ascended upon deck. Five minutes afterwards the fog again lifted, and so suddenly, that the water was perfectly clear for five hundred yards all round. To the great surprise of all parties, those on board the corvette beheld, within three hundred yards of them, two vessels, whose calling there was no mistaking.

The nearest, our hero thought one of the handsomest vessels of her class he had ever seen. She was a long, low, beautifully-shaped craft, lugger rigged, but with the taunt masts raking like a slaver’s. She carried ten four-pounders and several brass swivels, and appeared to be full of men. The other was a schooner, a handsome vessel, and carrying eight guns, probably six-pounders.

Both crowded sail when they beheld the Babet; but, as the tricolour was flying at the corvette’s peak, and her French build deceived them, they tacked and stood towards them.

“Now, my lads,” said Captain O’Loughlin, “we must take those two fellows or sink them. That lugger, I know, can outsail us, therefore the first thing to do is to cripple him; so down with the tricolour, and give him a dose under the bunting—that always wins.”

Down went the revolutionary flag, and in its place arose old England’s ensign. This proceeding astounded the two strangers. The lugger was the well-known and notorious privateer, Vengeance, the fastest and most successful of its description, out of any French port—a perfect pest to commerce. This, of course, was not then known to those on board the Babet, neither could our hero imagine how much that said lugger would affect his after destiny.

The moment the lugger became aware of the dangerous enemy she was approaching, then she wore, firing her starboard guns at the same time.

But the Babet poured in a broadside from her heavy metal that seemed to do considerable mischief; in fact, wounding her main mast so severely that, had there been more wind, it would have gone overboard.

The schooner came boldly up, and, seeing how few men were on board the Babet, fired a broadside into the corvette, cutting her rigging up, and wounding two of her crew. She had also a heavy pivot-gun, which she was preparing to use, loaded with grape.

But, the wind freshening, the crew of the corvette, with a hearty cheer, returned the broadside, at only pistol-shot distance. This action evidently confounded the crew of the schooner, which at once bore up, whilst a discharge from the larboard side of the Babet knocked the main-mast of the lugger over the side.