“‘’Tis well,’ replied Farmer. ‘Brace the yards up, and let her come to the wind on the larboard tack; afterguard, rig the whip and wash the decks down. Topmen, away aloft; keep snugly to leeward,—see that all your studding-sail gear is properly rove, and have every thing ready for shaking out a reef and setting the royals. Boatswain’s mates, send a gang below to bring the hammocks up; and, quarter-masters, to your stations in stowing them. Call the gunner’s crew, and tell them to go round the quarters and see everything in its place. Signal-man! bend the colours at the peak, and have our number ready to show at the main. Main-top there!—stand by to hoist the pennant, and mind it blows out clear. Be smart, my lads: one lubberly act would make them suspect that Captain P—— was not on board, or that his cat had lost its tails.’
“In a few minutes every man was at his appointed station, and the duty was carrying on with as much alacrity and attention as if nothing had happened. The Mermaid, a two-and-thirty gun frigate, was nearing them fast, and the cruisers in-shore were stretching out from the land to join her.
“‘The frigate is speaking to us with his bunting, sir,’ exclaimed the signal-man; ‘she is showing her distinguishing pennants.’
“Farmer clapped his hands in ecstacy. ‘By Heaven! it never struck me Captain P—— was the senior captain. Hoist the ensign and pennant;—bear a hand with the number, and see that the flags blow clear!’ He directed his glass to the Mermaid, and looked intently for a minute or two. ‘She sees it:—haul down! And now, my lad, make the Mermaid’s signal to make all sail in chase to the north-east: bend on the preparatory flag at the main and her pennants at the mizen, and have all ready abaft to telegraph;—it will amuse the fools and keep them from being too familiar. Is the signal hoisted?’
“‘Ay, ay, sir,’ replied the signal-man, ‘there it flies in as many colours as a dying dolphin;—and there goes the answering pennant at the frigate’s main; haul down, my boys.’
“The moody gloom left Farmer’s brow, as he saw by the Mermaid’s manœuvring that his signal had been obeyed. He then bore up again to the westward, telegraphed that he was going in chase, crowded his canvass on every spar that would spread a cloth, and soon had a clear horizon all around him.
“But though Farmer had determined to run for the Spanish main, yet he was not sufficiently acquainted with the coast to know the appearance of the land. Mr. Southcott, therefore, was brought on deck, and partly through compulsion and partly through a desire of getting clear of the mutineers, he carried the ship off La Guayra, where she was ultimately surrendered to the Spanish authorities, Farmer declaring that they had turned their officers adrift in the jolly-boat, though the real fact was very soon afterwards explained to the Spaniards. The master, the gunner, the carpenter and two midshipmen of those saved were sent to prison; but the mutineers received twenty-five dollars a man, a great many of them became double traitors by entering for the frigate under the Spanish flag, and Farmer was appointed second captain. The first captain’s name, I’m told, was Gallows,[1] so that his junior must have been pretty often reminded of it.
“Admiral Harvey, on hearing of all the circumstances, sent a flag of truce to demand the frigate and the mutineers; but though the Spaniards were made acquainted with the horrible murders that had been committed when the ship was taken possession of, yet they not only refused to deliver her up, but actually put six more guns aboard of her, making altogether forty-four, and with a crew of nearly four hundred men, she was fitted out and made a voyage to San Domingo, very narrowly escaping the British cruisers who were all on the alert to pick her up.”
“And this, your honour,” said my chaperon, “is old Hughes’s story, and that’s the ship there it’s all about.”
I had been deeply interested in his narrative, which he related with peculiar feeling, and some parts were almost dramatised by his singular gestures and manner. “And what became of the boatswain’s wife?” I inquired.