The Red Rover: A Tale

by James Fenimore Cooper

We shall not detain the narrative, to dwell upon the natural regrets in which Gertrude indulged, as this sad conviction forced itself upon her understanding, nor to relate the gentle wishes in which she did not think it wrong to indulge, that one, who certainly was master of so many manly and generous qualities, might soon be made to see the error of his life, and to return to a course for which even her cold and nicely judging governess allowed nature had so eminently endowed him. Perhaps the kind emotions that had been awakened in her bosom, by the events of the last fortnight, were not content to exhibit themselves in wishes alone, and that petitions more personal, and even more fervent than common, mingled in her prayers; but this is a veil which it is not our province to raise, the heart of one so pure and so ingenuous being the best repository for its own gentle feelings.

For several days the ship had been contending with the unvarying winds of those regions. Instead of struggling, however, like a cumbered trader, to gain some given port, the “Rover” suddenly altered her course, and glided through one of the many passages that offered, with the ease of a bird that is settling swiftly to its nest. A hundred different sails were seen steering among the islands, but all were avoided alike; the policy of the freebooters teaching them the necessity of moderation, in a sea so crowded with vessels of war. After the vessel had shot through one of the straits which divide the chain of the Antilles, she issued in safety on the more open sea which separates them from the Spanish Main. The moment the passage was effected, and a broad and clear horizon was seen stretching on every side of them, a manifest alteration occurred in the mien of every individual of the crew. The brow of the Rover himself lost its contraction; and the look of care, which had wrapped the whole man in a mantle of reserve, disappeared, leaving him the reckless wayward being we have more than once described. Even the men, whose vigilance had needed no quickening in running the gauntlet of the cruisers which were known to swarm in the narrower seas, appeared to breathe a freer air, and sounds of merriment and thoughtless gaiety were once more heard in a place over which the gloom of distrust had been so long and so heavily cast.

On the other hand, the governess saw new ground for uneasiness in the course the vessel was taking. While the islands were in view, she had hoped, and surely not without reason, that their captor only awaited a suitable occasion to place them in safety within the influence of the laws of some of the colonial governments. Her own observation told her there was so much of what was once good, if not noble, mingled with the lawlessness of the two principal individuals in the vessel, that she saw nothing that was visionary in such an expectation. Even the tales of the time, which recounted the desperate acts of the freebooter, with not a little of wild and fanciful exaggeration, did not forget to include numberless striking instances of marked, and even chivalrous generosity. In short, he bore the character of one who, while he declared himself the enemy of all, knew how to distinguish between the weak and the strong, and who often found as much gratification in repairing the wrongs of the former, as in humbling the pride of the latter.

But all her agreeable anticipations from this quarter were forgotten when the last island of the groupe sunk into the sea behind them, and the ship lay alone on an ocean which showed not another object above its surface. As if now ready to lay aside the mask the Rover ordered the sails to be reduced, and, neglecting the favourable breeze, the vessel to be brought to the wind. In a word, as if no object called for the immediate attention of her crew, the “Dolphin” came to a stand, in the midst of the water her officers and people abandoning themselves to their pleasures, or to idleness, as whim or inclination dictated.

“I had hoped that your convenience would have permitted us to land in some of his Majesty’s islands,” said Mrs Wyllys, speaking for the first time since her suspicions had been awakened on the subject of her quitting the ship, and addressing her words to the self-styled Captain Heidegger, just after the order to heave-to the vessel had been obeyed. “I fear you find it irksome to be so long dispossessed of your cabin.”

“It cannot be better occupied,” he rather evasively replied; though the observant and anxious governess fancied his eye was bolder, and his air under less restraint, than when she had before dwelt on the same topic. “If custom did not require that a ship should wear the colours of some people, mine should always sport those of the fair.”

“And, as it is?”——

“As it is, I hoist the emblems that belong to the service I am in.”

“In fifteen days, that you have been troubled with my presence, it has never been my good fortune to see those colours set.”

“No!” exclaimed the Rover, glancing his eye at her, as if to penetrate her thoughts: “Then shall the uncertainty cease on the sixteenth.—Who’s there, abaft?”