"Heave to," was our reply.
Incredulity, consternation! The officers and sailors on deck stood paralyzed for a long moment. Then the barque hove to.
Our prize crew went aboard and commandeered a batch of fine red wine from among the ship's provisions, and three fine fat hogs. The Frenchmen packed their belongings, and came aboard the Seeadler. They were a glum-looking, disgusted lot.
The French sailor bitterly hates to leave his ship. He is almost as attached to it as the average Frenchman is attached to his native land. No French sailor willingly serves on a foreign ship. The crews of other nations are made up of men from every corner of the world, from Chittagong and Malacca to Senegal and Jamaica, from Hull to Helsingfors, but no foreigner is taken on a French ship. The French sea laws are more severe than those of other nations. Desertion from a French ship is a very serious offense, while on most German ships it is punished by a mere fine of twenty marks.
The captain was painfully correct in his manner toward us. He was a tall, impressive fellow with deep voice and black beard. A man of fine education and studious mind, he was scrupulously polite, but knew how to make the hostility he felt toward us clearly and rather amusingly evident. He was our prisoner. Very well, he conceded that. But we were the enemies of his country and the destroyers of his ship. Therefore he preserved a demeanour appropriate to that attitude of mind throughout his entire voyage with us. For our part, we could not but admire him for his superb, unbending spirit.
His barque was loaded with a cargo of corn and bound for Bordeaux. Now, I don't know much music, and I don't care for this modern jazz school at all. Faust I enjoy. Give me the duet in the Garden scene, and, since I am called the "Sea Devil," I don't mind admitting a secret fondness for old Mephisto and his serenade beneath the window. Now I had to sink my favourite composer. The thought of it made me hum a phrase of Valentine's dying lament.
But the sinking of the Charles Gounod meant much more than any such superficial melancholy. One shouldn't ever have to sink a sailing ship. They are the last survivors of the golden days at sea, crueler days and finer days. Take any old salt who has sailed before the mast, and ask him. The shipyards are not building many of them any more, and the day of the schooner, the barque, the clipper, and the barquentine is fast passing. Every one that goes down to Davy Jones is a loss that will not be replaced. I have an old-time seaman's love for sailships. A steamer? Train the guns and light the fuses. I could sink a steamer and laugh as she takes her last dive. But I never did get used to sinking sailing ships, although we had to send many of them on their last voyage before our own final adventure in the South Seas.
Our bombs exploded in the hold of the Charles Gounod. She lurched like a living thing. Her tall masts trembled. The majestic ship seemed to bow her head as she nosed down into the sea. The last we saw of her was a glimpse of her tallest mast and waving from it the tricolour of France. With her departure, I somehow thought I saw the passing of the whole age of sailing ships.
Three days later, a tremendous commotion in the rigging. Six men were reporting "Sail ho!"
"Hold there," I roared, "let's have done with the argument until we've settled with the ship."