All this, which I would without the smallest feeling of dread, on the contrary with exhilaration, have faced cheerily on deck in the course of duty, proved at the time, under my circumstances, most alarming and painful to me; a fair-strae death out of the maintop, or off the weather-yard arm, would to my imagination have been an easy exit comparatively; but to be choked in this abominable hole, and drowned darkling like a blind puppy—the very thought made me frantic, and I shouted and tumbled about, until I missed my footing and fell backwards down the ladder, from the bottom of which I scuttled away to the lee-side of the cabin, quiet, through absolute despair and exhaustion from the heat and closeness.
I had remarked that from the time the breeze freshened, the everlasting Yankee drawling of the crew, and the endless confabulation of the captain and his mate, had entirely ceased, and nothing was now heard on deck but the angry voice of the raging elements, and at intervals a shrill piercing word or two from Obed, in the altered tone of which I had some difficulty in recognising his pipe, which rose clear and distinct above the roar of the sea and wind, and was always answered by a prompt, sharp, “ay, ay, sir,” from the men. There was no circumlocution, nor calculating, nor guessing now, but all hands seemed to be doing their duty energetically and well. “Come, the vagabonds are sailors after all, we shan’t be swamped this turn;” and I resumed my place on the companion ladder, with more ease of mind, and a vast deal more composure, than when I was pitched from it when the squall came on. In a moment after I could hear the captain sing out, loud even above the howling of the wind and rushing of the water, “There it comes at last—put your helm hard a-port-down with it, Paul, down with it, man-luff, and shake the wind out of her sails, or over we goes, clean and for ever.’ Everything was jammed, nothing could be let go, nor was there an axe at hand to make short work with the sheets and haulyards; and for a second or two I thought it was all over, the water rushing half way up her decks, and bubbling into the companion through the crevices; but at length the lively little craft came gaily to the wind, shaking her plumage like a wild duck; the sails were got in, all to the foresail, which was set with the bonnet off, and then she lay-to like a seagull, without shipping a drop of water. In the comparative stillness I could now distinctly hear every word that was said on deck.
“Pretty near it; rather close shaving that same, captain,” quoth Paul, with a congratulatory chuckle; “but I say, sir, what is that wreath of smoke rising from Annotta Bay over the headland?”
“Why, how should I know, Paul? Negroes burning brush, I guess.”
“The smoke from brushwood never rose and flew over the bluff with that swirl, I calculate; it is a gun, or I mistake.”
And he stepped to the companion for the purpose, as I conceived, of taking out the spy-glass, which usually hangs there in brackets fitted to hold it; he undid the hatch and pushed it back, when I popped my head out, to the no small dismay of the mate; but Obed was up to me, and while with one hand he seized the glass, he ran the sliding top sharp up against my neck, till he pinned me into a kind of pillory, to my great annoyance; so I had to beg to be released, and once more slunk back into my hole. There was a long pause; at length Paul, to whom the skipper had handed the spy-glass, spoke.
“A schooner, sir, is rounding the point.”
As I afterwards learned, the negroes who had witnessed my capture, especially the old man who had taken me for his infernal majesty, had raised the alarm, so soon as they could venture down to the overseer’s house, which was on the smuggling boat shoving off, and Mr Fyall immediately despatched an express to the Lieutenant commanding the Gleam, then lying in Annotta Bay, about ten miles distant, when she instantly slipped and shoved out.
“Well, I can’t help it if there be,” rejoined the captain. Another pause.
“Why, I don’t like her, sir; she looks like a man-of-war-and that must have been the smoke of the gun she fired on weighing.’