The Red Rover: A Tale

by James Fenimore Cooper

“Mr Wilder,” he said, in a tone of kindness, “I comprehend your feelings. All have not offended alike in yonder vessel, and you would rather your service against that haughty flag should commence with some other ship. There is little else but empty honour to be gained in the conflict—in tenderness to your feelings, I will avoid it.”

“It is too late,” said Wilder, with a melancholy shake of the head.

“You shall see your error. The experiment may cost us a broadside, but it shall succeed. Go, descend with our guests to a place of safety; and, by the time you return, the scene shall have undergone a change.”

Wilder eagerly disappeared in the cabin, whither Mrs Wyllys had already withdrawn; and, after communicating the intentions of his Commander to avoid an action, he conducted them into the depths of the vessel, in order that no casualty might arrive to imbitter his recollections of the hour. This grateful duty promptly and solicitously performed, our adventurer again sought the deck, with the velocity of thought.

Notwithstanding his absence had seemed but of a moment, the scene had indeed changed in all its hostile images. In place of the flag of France, he found the ensign of England floating at the peak of the “Dolphin,” and a quick and intelligible exchange of lesser signals in active operation between the two vessels. Of all that cloud of canvas which had so lately borne down the vessel of the Rover, her top sails alone remained distended to the yards; the remainder was hanging in festoons, and fluttering loosely before a favourable breeze. The ship itself was running directly for the stranger, who, in turn, was sullenly securing his lofty sails, like one who was disappointed in a high-prized and expected object.

“Now is yon fellow sorry to believe him a friend whom he had lately supposed an enemy,” said the Rover, directing the attention of his lieutenant to the confiding manner with which their neighbour suffered himself to be deceived by his surreptitiously obtained signals. “It is a tempting offer; but I pass it, Wilder for your sake.”

The gaze of the lieutenant seemed bewildered, but he made no reply. Indeed, but little time was given for deliberation or discourse. The “Dolphin” rolled swiftly along her path, and each moment dissipated the mist in which distance had enveloped the lesser objects on board the stranger. Guns, blocks, ropes, bolts, men, and even features, became plainly visible, in rapid succession, as the water that divided them was parted by the bows of the lawless ship. In a few short minutes, the stranger, having secured most of his lighter canvas, came sweeping up to the wind; and then, as his after-sails, squared for the purpose, took the breeze on their outer surface, the mass of his hull became stationary.

The people of the “Dolphin” had so far imitated the confiding credulity of the deceived cruiser of the Crown, as to furl all their loftiest duck, each man employed in the service trusting implicitly to the discretion and daring of the singular being whose pleasure it was to bring their ship into so hazardous a proximity to a powerful enemy—qualities that had been known to avail them in circumstances of even greater delicacy than those in which they were now placed. With this air of audacious confidence, the dreaded Rover came gliding down upon her unsuspecting neighbour, until within a few hundred feet of her weather-beam, when she too, with a graceful curve in her course, bore up against the breeze, and came to a state of rest. But Wilder, who regarded all the movements of his superior in silent amazement, was not slow in observing that the head of the “Dolphin” was laid a different way from that of the other, and that her progress had been arrested by the counteracting position of her head-yards; a circumstance that afforded the advantage of a quicker command of the ship, should need require a sudden recourse to the guns.

The “Dolphin” was still drifting slowly under the last influence of her recent motion, when the customary hoarse and nearly unintelligible summons came over the water, demanding her appellation and character. The Rover applied his trumpet to his lips, with a meaning glance that was directed towards his lieutenant, and returned the name of a ship, in the service of the King, that was known to be of the size and force of his own vessel.

“Ay, ay,” returned a voice from out of the other ship, “’twas so I made out your signals.”