“It had fallen nearly calm. A light air perhaps in the royals, though nothing down below. But as we hauled down our colors at sunset, which had been hoisted to let the fellow know who we were, down came his also. Then there we both lay looking at each other. He knew by instinctive experience that we were the American corvette ‘Scourge,’ mounting eighteen twenty-four-pounder carronades and two long eighteens in the bow ports; for the brigantine had once or twice determined their exact calibres, and that we were the fastest cruiser, with the wind a point or two free, that had been seen in the West Indies for twenty years.
“Yes, he knew all about us, but he was still a little in doubt whether we knew all about him. He lay––unfortunately, perhaps, for him––a little beyond the range of our long guns, or else he might have been spared a good deal of time and uneasiness, and we a long chase and considerable risk. Ah! as the night came, the very fires he had kindled in his den on shore prevented his escape; for while the calm lasted the bright flames shone upon him with the glare of hell! There we lay all that night without moving a muscle or a mile until day dawned––and such a day as did dawn!
“Meanwhile the barometer had fallen an inch and a half, until the master began to believe the bulb leaked, and the mercury was dropping into the case. Then, through the murky gloom of daylight, with the sea one flat greasy surface, with never the splash of a fish to disturb it, while the lowest whisper of the topmen aloft could be distinctly heard on deck, as if we were hung in the vacuum of an exhausted receiver where a feather would drop like a bullet, suddenly there came a sound from the direction of the cays. Suppose, Burns, you saw a forty-two pound shot coming toward you, and without you dodged quick, your head would be flying off with it in the same direction?”
“Whist, mon!” said Stewart, with a groan, “dinna be calling up sic peectures of the brain, Cleveland. Paddy, there, ne’er thinks of ony meesals bigger than a peestol bullet.”
“Well, my friends, we ran precisely a similar risk, though the cloudy embrasures over the island had not quite enough thunder to reach us. However, the brigantine knew what would follow as well as we did––better, perhaps––and before you could swallow that glass of wine she was stripped as bare as a bone, and down came her yards too, but keeping the sticks up, and spreading a patch of a storm staysail forward that you might apparently have put in your pocket. Her decks and rigging were crowded with men while she was doing all this, but the moment it was done, and well done too, they ran into their holes below like so many rats, and we could only see a man or two left on deck near the helm.
“All hands had been called on board the ‘Scourge’ at four o’clock, and, with the exception of securing the battery, every thing was ready to make a skeleton of the ship the moment we saw the brigantine begin; for she was a wary fish, and we had no idea of letting her give us the slip the third time. I had the trumpet, however, and with the captain at my elbow, the instant he saw that the brigantine was once more rigged nearly in her old way, he gave me the word, ‘Now, Cleveland, work sharp!’
“With a hundred and twenty men aloft, jumping about like cats, the light sails, studding-sail booms, royal and top-gallant yards came down, the top-gallant masts after them, and the flying jib-boom rigged 212 in. Then the top-sails close reefed and furled with extra gaskets, and so with the courses; preventer braces clapped on, rolling tackles hooked, and the spare purchases set up by the lower pennants. Meanwhile the divisions on deck had got hawsers over the launch amidships, the chains unbent, the anchors lashed down on the forecastle, and the quarter boats triced well inboard and secured with the davits. At the same time the light stuff from aloft was got below, the hammocks piped down, and the carpenters slapped the gratings on the hatches, and stood ready with the tarpaulins to batten them down. I never beheld a smarter piece of work done afloat––not even, Hardy, in the ‘Monongahela.’