“All right, Mr. Fotheringay; you can tell Captain Raggett that I shall do my best to help Dunton in the survey. Between us we should be able to find out the dangerous places, and they are many. I wonder what Win Knowles thinks of all this!”
“Captain Knowles will be very busy getting that ransom money,” replied the lieutenant smilingly.
“He’ll be in a devil of a state of mind when he finds that he can’t get back to the frigate! However, I gave him a broad hint that his journey would do me no good, but Win was always one of those fellows that you can’t convince when he’s made up his mind that his own ideas are the best.”
Fotheringay reported Hoppy’s decision to the commander and the latter expressed his satisfaction at the Cape Codder’s acquiescence in the project. Next morning, the frigate passed out of Provincetown harbor and headed for the northwest. Soon after, the schooner’s anchor was weighed and the memorable cruise began.
It was a lovely morning. Before the gentle breeze the schooner took her leisurely way across Cape Cod bay and in the direction of Barnstable. As he stood on her deck, Hoppy Mayo was a prey to conflicting thoughts. He little dreamed that at the finish of the adventure in which he was an unwilling participant he should occupy a niche in the temple of fame, or that his name should be handed down through the years as that of a man who had not hesitated in the face of fearful odds to match his strategy against the foes of his country and win undying renown by an act of individual daring which has rarely been equaled in our naval annals. No such thought crossed his mind; but, on the contrary, he felt already the opprobrium which would be his lot when history should record the fact that he had aided the enemies of the fatherland. True, he had not abandoned all hope; his keen mind had been at work and he had reasoned it out that there was still a chance left. This chance was a remote one, but stranger things had occurred and fortune might yet favor him.
As the schooner crept across the bay, Hoppy’s gaze ranged along the low-lying shores of old Cape Cod. The long stretches of white strand glistened in the sunlight and the tiny hillocks, known as the dunes, seemed to be engaged in a brave effort to raise themselves above the tops of the sea pines and the stunted oaks of the neighboring groves. Billingsgate Point broke the sameness of the coastline and guarded the harbor of Wellfleet, the only important haven south of Provincetown, the other landing-places being small creeks and inlets. The high tide concealed the treacherous flats so much dreaded by the British commander, and the placid surface of the sea revealed no evidence of the dangerous sandbars on which many a heedless mariner had come to grief. Within the encircling arm of the Cape, almost at the point where it abruptly turns northward, the pilot could see his native village of Eastham, and the sight added to his bitterness of soul. Cape Cod towns were then, and, indeed, are at the present day, straggling places altogether different from the old-world idea of a town. They are properly townships, each about six miles in length and, on the lower Cape, from Brewster to Provincetown, the width of each township varies with the Cape itself, being bounded on either side by the ocean and the bay, narrowing from about three miles at Orleans to a good deal less at Truro and Provincetown. There is no crowding of habitations in the villages. Land is cheap and the people believe in plenty of elbow room.
For the first time since the outbreak of hostilities, Hoppy felt inclined to coincide with the views of Jared Higgins, Winslow Knowles and other leaders of the anti-war party. It was easy enough to join in the patriotic indignation aroused by the acts of the British, but it was one thing to wax eloquent on the question at Crosby’s and another to be helpless in the hands of the enemy, forced to obey the orders of a bully like Dunton and obliged to play a part, the very thought of which brought the blush of shame to his cheek. There, a few miles away, were “his young barbarians all at play.” There were his neighbors, the playmates of his childhood and the companions of his youth and manhood. Peace, for the moment, hovered over the scene and in the absence of the warships there appeared nothing likely to disturb the seeming tranquility of the smiling land. But what of the morrow? The thunder of the enemy’s guns would bring terror to helpless women and children and many a happy home might suffer the loss of its brave defenders. Ruined rooftree and bloody corpse would testify to Britannia’s might, and all because the cradle-land of his race with cruel arrogance refused to the youthful and still weak American nation the rights which every free people must maintain or perish. So absorbed was the captive in these reflections that he did not notice the approach of Dunton until the latter’s voice brought him to with a start.
“Taking in the scenery, Mayo? One would think you had never seen it before by the attention you seem to be giving it.”
Hoppy took no notice of the sneering tone in which this was said. He had made up his mind to stand a lot from Dunton, but every insult would be stored in his memory and when the proper time arrived the Englishman would be amply repaid in a manner thoroughly satisfactory to the American.
“It looks kind of pretty at this distance, Mr. Dunton.”