Chapter Twenty Six.
A good Morning’s Work.
Our prizes of course had not arrived, so, having seen little Fisher comfortably bestowed, landed our silver at the dockyard, and handed over our prisoners to the proper authorities, we weighed again that same evening, and proceeded northward upon our cruise.
When off Martinique, which had fallen into our hands in the early part of the preceding year, we spoke the British frigate “Blanche,” steering towards Barbadoes. Her skipper came on board the “Astarte,” and, in reply to Captain Annesley’s inquiries, reported that they had done nothing since the capture of the French frigate “Pique” in January, on which occasion Captain Faulkner, the former skipper of the “Blanche” and a most promising officer, was killed. Her present captain, (Watkins, acting) expressed great disgust at the state of affairs, and, rather cynically, ventured to hope we should have better luck than he had met with.
Nothing worthy of mention occurred until we arrived off Guadaloupe. We had made a thorough inspection of all the neighbouring islands, beginning with Mariegalante, and had looked into Point-à-Pitre Harbour on the Grand Terre without making any discovery, when, one evening, while beating up under the south side of Désirade, we espied a schooner at anchor near the shore and directly under the guns of a fort. Preparations were immediately made for cutting her out; the frigate tacking meanwhile, and reaching off the shore again in order to lull any suspicions the Frenchmen may have had as to our intentions.
We worked up round the north-east end of the island, and it being by that time as dark as it would be, the frigate hove-to, and the boats, properly manned and armed, were despatched under sail. I took no part in this expedition, as I had shared in the other, and the skipper was anxious to give all his “young gentlemen” as far as possible equal opportunities of distinguishing themselves. The boats sent away on this occasion were the first cutter, under Mr Woods, the second lieutenant, the second cutter, under Gimbals, the quarter-master, with little Smellie to lend a hand, and the jollyboat, under the command of no less a personage than Mr Robert Summers.
We allowed them an hour and a quarter to get down to the schooner, at the expiration of which time we filled and stood after them.
As we rounded the end of the island I slipped up as far as the fore-topmast crosstrees, to see if I could make out anything of what was going on. All was perfectly dark and quiet to leeward, however, for the first ten minutes of my stay, and then I saw a bright flash—another—a third—then two more in quick succession, and presently the distant boom of heavy guns came rumbling up to windward.
“Ah!” thought I. “That is the battery playing upon our people, I expect.”
The fire was kept up pretty briskly for about ten minutes, and then it ceased. Shortly afterwards a red light appeared inshore of us (the preconcerted signal of success), and almost immediately after its appearance I could make out the schooner, on board which it was displayed, coming out from under the land. A quarter of an hour afterwards she was hove-to on our lee quarter.