“Away, topgallant and royal yard men! Lay aloft, topmen and lower yard men! Trice up booms; lay out; furl!”
A hundred men sprang into the rigging as they were called away; each yard swarmed with them as they rapidly furled the sails; and as the ship lost her headway, the anchor was let go, the crew quickly laid down from aloft, and the beautiful ship that but a few minutes before had been alive under a cloud of canvas was quietly swinging to her anchor, with sails trimly furled, bunts triced up, yards squared by lifts and braces, and no man to be seen above the hammock nettings save the lookout at each masthead and the commanding officer, who from the poop had been critically watching this evolution of “a flying-moor,” and now turned to express his satisfaction to the executive officer, who was turning the trumpet over to the officer of the deck.
“Very neatly done, indeed, Mr. Bailey! We couldn’t have beaten that in the old Richmond with three times our crew! Men who show the result of your excellent training so smartly as this at least deserve a Christmas dinner. Have my gig called away immediately after breakfast, and I will go on shore and see if I cannot knock over a bullock. I don’t believe any of us will object to a bit of roast beef, and I shall be glad to make a little reconnaissance at the same time.”
My predecessor on this station had been Captain Robert Wade, in command of the United States bark Arthur. As she was at Pensacola when I took command of the Anderson, I went on board of her one day to learn something about my new station.
“Well, Kelson,” said Captain Wade in response to my queries, “it is a God-forsaken coast, and I am not sorry to have got away from it myself. You will need to anchor in about ten fathoms, say three miles from shore; for when the northers come along next winter you will very likely have to slip, and then you will require plenty of sea room to work off shore.”
“Any inhabitants about the bay?”
“I never saw any. There are some half-wild cattle on Matagorda Island, and I used to go on shore, occasionally, and shoot one for the messes. It’s a pretty lonely spot, I assure you!”
That was about all that I had been able to learn, in advance, of the stretch of coast I was supposed to take care of; and up to this blessed Christmas Day, now nearly two weeks, no signs whatever of life in the neighborhood of the bay had been discovered, although a bright lookout had been constantly maintained from the mastheads of my ship.
Consequently I felt that I was taking every reasonable precaution when I ordered my boat’s crew to wear their cutlasses, and had half a dozen Sharps’ rifles put in the stern sheets, for I knew that we would be more than a match for any possible bushwhackers, although I had no reason to expect any opposition. My surgeon had gladly accepted an invitation to join me, and soon after breakfast we shoved off from the ship on our quest for beef.
Across the mouth of the bay the breakers made a line of white-capped surf; but acting on instructions I had received from Captain Wade, I watched for a heavy roller, and then we gave way and went in with it, keeping the boat’s stern to the sea, and thus crossed the bar with only a slight drenching.