‘And are you captain here,’ he asked.
‘I was until you came on board,’ said Fanny gallantly giving up her sword to the victor.
‘But—but—’ said Burnet, hesitating.
‘I will explain all when we are alone,’ said Fanny.
She was conducted to the private cabin of Captain Burnet, and a prize crew of four only, placed in the Constance, while the prisoners were all released, and most of them taken on board the Dolphin. These prisoners, from the necessary severity of their confinement, were unable to work, and indeed scarcely able to walk. Thus the four men placed on board the Constance, with two of the prisoners who were found to be able to work, under the charge of the mate of the Dolphin, formed all the crew that could be spared. Burnet could not afford a larger number, for his late encounter had cost him more than two thirds of his whole complement of men. He had but ten seamen left to work his own vessel, and as they were so near to port he doubted not that the brig would be easily worked into harbor. He therefore made sail and left her to follow him to Boston.
Scarcely had the Dolphin dropped her prize so far astern as to fairly lose sight of her, before the bark and ship, having changed their course and returned to see how the Constance had rode out the storm, hove in sight. They were not long in ascertaining the state of affairs, and in making themselves masters of the brig again! Lovell learned the details of the whole affair from the Englishman whom Fanny had pardoned. The evidence of the dreadful slaughter upon the Constance’s forecastle was still visible, and was viewed with feelings of no slight degree of interest by Lovell and Herbert.—The former feared much for Fanny, and indeed was half crazed with regret; but there was no other course for them to take but to steer their course for Lynn harbor, which all three of the vessels did, Lovell and Herbert having heavy hearts within them for victors to carry; and the former would gladly have relinguished all to have clasped Fanny again safely in his arms.
Thus was the thread of our eventful tale spun on the wide waters at sea, while on land and in the little hamlet of High Bock, Lynn, the friends and relations of Fanny Campbell, except her parents, had never ceased to speculate and wonder as to the true cause of her absence. Her parents maintaining a profound secrecy upon the subject, threw a stronger degree of mystery about the matter, that kept the good old women and the gossips generally of the village in fidgets. Indeed, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell themselves did not hesitate to express a feeling of fear and dread lest some ill had befallen her, yet pretending that they really did not know where she had gone, for this was the express wish of Fanny and the promise gained from her parents that they would not reveal her secret was religiously kept when she left her home. One or two knowing the fact of William Lovell’s imprisonment, had shrewdly surmised that her absence related in some way to the affair; but in what particular way, no one knew.
‘I have daily forebodings that poor Fanny will never see her home again,5 said her mother to her consort one evening when both sat quietly with the bible open before them, and from whence they had as usual been reading aloud,’ previous to retiring to rest for the night.
‘Let us trust in Heaven, wife, it’s a holy cause she is engaged in, but I too have my fears for her safety.’
‘Poor child, she did not even tell us how she was to make the voyage,’ said the mother,—‘unprotected though of course.’