Presently a young lady, stepping up to him, took hold of one of the bright buttons that were glittering on the breast of his coat, and asked him if he would not permit her to cut it off, as a memento of her adventure with the Alabama. He assented. A pair of scissors was produced, and away went the button! This emboldened another lady to make the same request, and away went another button; and so the process went on, until when I got my handsome lieutenant back, he was like a plucked peacock—he had scarcely a button to his coat! There were no more Hebes drowned in tears, on board the Ariel.
But what struck my young officer as very singular was the deportment of the male passengers. Some of these seemed to be overhauling their trunks in a great hurry, as though there were valuables in them, which they were anxious to secrete. Their watches, too, had disappeared from some of their vest-pockets. “I verily believe,” said he, as he was giving me an account of the manner in which he performed his mission, “that these fellows think we are no better than the Northern thieves, who are burning dwelling-houses, and robbing our women and children in the South!”
I take pleasure in contrasting, in these memoirs, the conduct of my officers and crew, during the late war, in the uniform respect which they paid to the laws of war, and the dictates of humanity, with that of some of the generals and colonels of the Federal Army, who debased our common nature, and disgraced the uniforms they wore by the brutality and pilferings I have described. There were 500 passengers on board the Ariel. It is fair to presume, that each passenger had with him a purse, of from three to five hundred dollars. Under the laws of war, all this money would have been good prize. But not one dollar of it was touched, or indeed so much as a passenger’s baggage examined.
I carried out my intention, already expressed, of keeping the Ariel in company with me, for two or three days, hoping that I might capture some less valuable ship, into which to turn her passengers, that I might destroy her. I was very anxious to destroy this ship, as she belonged to a Mr. Vanderbilt, of New York, an old steamboat captain, who had amassed a large fortune, in trade, and was a bitter enemy of the South. Lucrative contracts during the war had greatly enhanced his gains, and he had ambitiously made a present of one of his steamers to the Federal Government, to be called after him, to pursue “rebel pirates.”
Failing to overhaul another ship of the enemy in the few days that I had at my disposal, I released the Ariel, on ransom-bond, and sent her, and her large number of passengers, on their way rejoicing. I found Captain Jones of the Ariel a clever and well-informed gentleman, and I believe he gave a very fair account of the capture of his ship when he reached New York. He pledged me that Vanderbilt’s ransom-bond, which he signed as his agent, would be regarded as a debt of honor. The bond is for sale, cheap, to any one desiring to redeem Mr. Vanderbilt’s honor.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE ALABAMA IS DISABLED, AND STOPS TO REPAIR HER MACHINERY—PROCEEDS TO HER NEW RENDEZVOUS, THE ARCAS ISLANDS, AND THENCE TO GALVESTON—COMBAT WITH THE UNITED STATES STEAMER HATTERAS.
The Alabama was disabled for two or three days, soon after the events recorded in the last chapter, by an accident which occurred to her engine—the giving way of one of the valve castings. I was, in consequence, obliged to withdraw from the tracks of commerce, and lie as perdue as possible, until the damage could be repaired. For this purpose, I ran close in with the land, on the north side of the island of Jamaica, where, with the exception of an occasional fishing-boat, and a passing coasting sloop, nothing was to be seen. Mr. Freeman, my chief engineer, was a capital machinist, and a man of great fertility of resource, and he went to work at once to remedy the mishap. Nothing but the puffing of the bellows, the clinking of the hammer on the anvil, and the rasping of files was heard now for forty-eight hours. At the end of this time, the engine was again in order for service. But we should have no occasion to use it for some days yet.