Very shortly the cutter came alongside, and we were boarded by a pert young cockerel of a midshipman, with a following of six or eight heavy-jawed British tars. Meeting Captain Lafitte's punctilious bow with a curt nod, the young fellow demanded to see his papers, and added with the lordliness of an admiral: "Pipe all hands on deck, and let there be no stowaways, for I warn you I shall exercise the rights of search and impressment."
Captain Lafitte made a formal protest against these so-called rights of search and impressment aboard an American sloop sailing from the neutral port of New Orleans to the unblockaded port of Vera Cruz. Without waiting for the insolent reply which this elicited, he sent for the ship's papers and ordered all hands on deck. While the midshipman glanced through the papers and log, all the crew, other than those concealed, assembled in the bows for inspection.
Unable to find a flaw in the papers, for Lafitte and the Siren were alike certified to as belonging to the port of New Orleans, our unwelcome visitor ordered the crew to file before him. In all the lot there was not one British subject nor one who looked like a Briton, yet the young tyrant picked out, without hesitancy, ten of the likeliest looking men, seven of them lean, lantern-jawed Yankees and three French creoles. In answer to the protests of the first that they were New Englanders, he snapped out the one word "Hull"—to the creoles, "Guernsey."
"Good God!" I cried to Captain Lafitte, who stood by, gnawing his mustache in silent fury. "You know these are native-born citizens of the United States. Can you submit to such an outrage?"
Far better had I held my peace! Instantly the middy demanded of the nearest of our men who I was. The fellow, a stupid mulatto, mumbled something about my being the third mate.
"So!" snapped the Englishman. "Third mate? It is well known that all Yankee ships are officered by British deserters. I'll take this loud-mouthed sea-lawyer."
"Not alive!" I rejoined. "I'm a free-born citizen of the Republic. I'll not submit, you lying young scoundrel!—Captain Lafitte!—shipmates! Show these bullies we can die like men!"
My appeal was in vain. Lafitte still stood silent, and the men turned to stare shamefaced at the guns of the frigate. I stepped back to catch up a marlin-spike, but the British crimps were too well trained in their despicable business. They sprang at and about me in a body. I struck out right and left; then a belaying-pin crashed upon my head with stunning force.
When I recovered consciousness, I found myself swinging in a sailor's hammock that was suspended from the beams of a low wooden ceiling. I felt strangely weak and faint, but made shift to turn my head enough to see that I was in a long, wide space between decks. The rows of cannon resting each before its open port roused in me a sort of dull, vague wonderment. A puff of salt sea air through the nearest port tempered the suffocating heat of the place and revived me to a clearer self-consciousness, though all my memory seemed, as it were, wrapped in a gray mist.
The first clear idea was that there was about my neck something precious which must not be lost. I fumbled about with a feeble hand, and drew out the rosary and cross from the open bosom of my shirt. I was gazing at this, still bewildered, when there came to my side a dried-up, kindly faced, bespectacled little gentleman who, at sight of my open eyes, nodded and chirruped almost gayly: "Ahoy, Jack! Pleased to see your wits out of limbo! You've had a narrow squeak of it, my man."