Upon investigation, it proved that the Royal Yacht had run out from Galveston two nights before; and, skillfully piloted by her captain, who was very familiar with the intricacies of the bay, she had passed through our entire blockading squadron, under cover of the darkness, and had got to sea unnoticed.
By ten o’clock we were again on our course for Galveston, with the Royal Yacht following in our wake, the cynosure of many watchful eyes. There was a good leading breeze, and by the same hour the following night we anchored among the Galveston fleet, and I reported my arrival to Commodore Bell.
The officers of the various vessels of the blockading fleet were very positive in their assertions that the Royal Yacht could not by any possibility have escaped from Galveston. But we found Galveston papers on board, printed the morning of the day she escaped, and much to their mortification the doubters were compelled to acknowledge the unwelcome fact.
The next day I dispatched the schooner to Key West with a prize crew, where in due time she was libeled, condemned, and sold with her cargo for nearly sixty thousand dollars. Of the proceeds of the sale the government received one half, and the other moiety was divided among my officers and crew.
As I had captured her on the high seas, out of sight of any other vessel, I received, as commanding officer, one tenth of our half, which made a very agreeable addition to my bank account, and was a pleasant souvenir of my first capture of a blockade runner.
CHAPTER VI
A NARROW ESCAPE
It was Christmas morning, and very early on Christmas morning, for the sun, like a great ball of burnished copper, was just rising above the mist that hung low along the eastern horizon, gilding with the first flush of dawn the cold, gray clouds and shimmering on the crest of the waves that rippled in the freshening breeze.
Under all sail and braced close to the wind, a war-ship is standing in for the land, where a long stretch of low sand hills is broken by the entrance to a bay, an ugly line of breakers making across; while a mile beyond, the tall, white shaft of a half-ruined lighthouse is visible.
The vessel is a clipper-built bark, her long, tapering masts heavily sparred and spreading a cloud of canvas. The lines of her hull are so fine, her bow is so sharp, and her run so clean moulded that she could evidently show great speed were she not so closely hauled. As it is, although every thread of canvas is drawing, the bowlines are hauled well out and the weather leeches of the topsails shiver as the ship rises and falls on the strong easterly swell; for she is kept almost in the wind’s eye by the old quartermaster at the wheel, under the watchful conning of the officer of the deck.