Quickly the party broke up and accompanied Conyngham to the water’s edge. Early in the morning, while still the mist hung over the harbor and shrouded the houses and shipping, a ghostlike vessel appeared in mid-channel, fanned by the damp shore breeze. It was the Revenge. On the fast ebb tide she slid swiftly out to sea.
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE CHANNEL
The firm of Hortalez and Company received word from their Spanish agents and the representatives of Lazzonere and Company that four English vessels—two brigs, a large lugger, and a ship (the last a most valuable prize)—had arrived at Corunna, all sent in within a week after the sailing of the Revenge. So well had everything been arranged that there was a ready sale. Vessels and cargoes were disposed of without a hitch to Spanish and French merchants, in many cases auctions being held on the public wharves. Two weeks more and eight other prizes were added to the list.
England was now in a storm of indignant protest. The Admiralty was besieged with letters, and ship-owners and insurance people, frightened at the prospect of further losses, showed signs of panic. Vessels already loaded and ready for sailing were held in port until they could sail, under convoy of an armed guard-ship. Insurance rates rose twenty-five per cent. And all this time a little, fast-sailing craft drove up and down the Channel, occasionally flaunting the rattlesnake flag almost in sight of the fleets that lay at anchor in the roadways.
And so we find her on one bright day in August, still in sight of the white cliffs, but heading southwest in chase of a deep-laden vessel whose suspicions had been aroused, for she was staggering along under a press of snow-white canvas.
Conyngham had gone forward to the forecastle and was watching the chase through his spy-glass. The crew, much reduced in numbers by reason of manning the prizes, watched him carefully. There had been something about the set of the stranger’s canvas that had suggested the man-o’-war, and now—although, as we have said, she had all sail set—she seemed to display a slowness that was puzzling, for hand over hand the Revenge picked up on her. The six-pounders and the swivels had been cast loose and provided, and the men were only waiting the orders to take their stations. There was a ponderous sea running, and the armament of the Revenge was practically useless except at short range. Time and again had the captain longed for a bow gun, and he would have exchanged half of his broadside for a long twelve-pounder. They were within two miles of the vessel now, and for the last few minutes Conyngham had not taken his eye from the glass, crouching, or at least half kneeling, against the bow-sprit in order to steady himself. The lower sails were wet with the spray that dashed up from the bows, and he himself was soaked almost to the skin. Suddenly he arose and shouted some orders hurriedly. The Revenge came up into the wind as if abandoning the chase. The second mate, who stood beside the helmsman, saw the captain come running aft.
“She’s a man-o’-war brig!” cried Conyngham. “I thought as much. She has a drag out to hold her back.”
“There she comes about,” answered the second mate. “Now we can see her teeth. You’re right, sir. She hoped to bring us up to her. Hadn’t we better run for it?”