In fact, we went over all the details of our voyage which was ending so sadly, never tiring during all the long weeks, and many times did we conjure up pictures of our shipmates who had been left behind on Nukuheva, wondering what they would do after months had passed and we failed to return, or speculating upon the possibility that they would attempt the homeward cruise in one of the prizes.
Poor fellows! While we spoke of them as living happily and amid plenty, they were battling for life, as I may one day set down in detail, if it so be that this feeble apology for a landsman's yarn finds favor with those who may read it.
The voyage on the cartel was a prosperous one, as I have already said, and in due time we were off the port of New York, believing that within a few hours, at the longest, we would be at liberty to go wheresoever it pleased us. The Essex Junior was no more than thirty miles from land when we sighted a Britisher who speedily gave us to understand that we must heave to and show our papers.
The stranger proved to be the Saturn, a razee (meaning a ship-of-war cut down to a smaller size by reducing the number of decks), commanded by Captain Nash.
We had not supposed there might be any question of our detention, for we had a passport in due form from Captain Hillyar; but this Britisher took it into his head that there must be something wrong with our craft; he even questioned the right of Captain Hillyar to parole us, and ended by giving the order that we lay by him during the night.
Immediately visions of a British prison danced before our eyes. We had been forced into a fight when our ship was little better than a wreck, by one Englishman, and now here was another who proposed to take in charge a lot of paroled men who were free to sail to their port of destination according to the usages of war among all nations.
After a time of jawing and tongue wagging among our sailors, we came to believe that Captain Porter was the one whom the Britisher particularly desired to hold; for surely he could have no wish to hamper himself with a lot of seamen whom he must, beyond a peradventure, set at liberty when his government learned the facts in the case.
What they would do with our captain no one seemed to so much as guess; we had decided among ourselves that some indignity would be put upon him, and when the word was passed from one to another that Captain Porter was inclined to make his escape in one of the small boats, every man jack volunteered to pull him ashore.
To row a ship's boat thirty miles, with the chances of being lost in the fog which was even then creeping over the waters, seemed like a desperate undertaking; but when Master Hackett, who had been selected by the crew as their spokesman, went aft and made known to Captain Porter what they desired to do, he accepted the offer without hesitation.
One of our boats was launched to leeward, where she might not be seen by those on the razee, and our commander, with little Midshipman Farragut by his side, lowered himself into the stern-sheets after the crew were at their stations.