This news brought with it consternation, and every town and village along the Fundy was a-hum with stories and theories about the pirate ship. The interest, instead of being abated, was augmented as the days went by with no further report. In the public-houses and along the quays it was almost the only topic of conversation. The excitement became almost feverish when it was known that several captains, outward bound, had taken with them a supply of rifles and ammunition. The prospect of a fight seemed imminent.
About a week after the adventure of the Boston packet Her Majesty's ship Buzzard appeared off Yarmouth harbor. The news of the Kanawha had come to the Admiral at Halifax, and he had dispatched the warship to cruise about the troubled coast.
"That'll be the end of old Mogul Mackenzie, now that he's got an English ship on his trail," averred a Canadian as he sat drinking in the "Yarmouth Light" with a group of seafaring men of various nationalities. "It takes the British jack-tar to put the kibosh on this pirate game. One of them is worth a shipload of Yankees at the business."
"Well, don't you crow too loud now," replied a Boston skipper. "I reckon that that Nova Scotian booze-artist, who ran into Portland the other day scared of his shadow, would not do you fellows much credit."
"Yes; but what about your gunboats that have had the job of fixing the Kanawha for the last three years, and haven't done it yet?" The feelings between Canada and the United States were none too good just after the Civil War, and the Canadian was bound not to lose this opportunity for horse-play. "You're a fine crowd of sea-dogs, you are, you fellows from the Boston Tea-Party. Three years after one little half-drowned rat, and haven't got him yet. Wouldn't Sir Francis Drake or Lord Nelson be proud of the record that you long-legged, slab-sided Yankees have made on the sea!"
"Shut your mouth! you blue-nosed, down-East herring-choker!" roared the Yankee skipper. "I reckon we've given you traitors that tried to stab us in the back a good enough licking; and if any more of your dirty dogs ever come nosing about down south of Mason and Dixon's Line, I bet they'll soon find out what our record is."
"Well, you fools can waste your tongue and wind," said a third man, raising his glass, "but for me here's good luck to the Buzzard."
"So say we all of us," chimed in the others, and the Yankee and the Canadian drank together to the success of the British ship, forgetting their petty jealousies before a common foe.
Everywhere the news of the arrival of the British warship was hailed with delight. All seemed to agree that her presence assured the speedy extermination of the pirate crew. But after several days of futile cruising about the coast, her commander, to escape from a coming storm, had to put into St. Mary's Bay, with the object of his search still eluding his vigilance. He only arrived in time to hear the last chapter of the Kanawha's tale of horrors.
The night before, Dominic Lefountain, a farmer living alone at Meteighan, a little village on the French shore, had been awakened from his sleep by the moaning and wailing of a human voice. For days the imminent peril of an assault from the pirates had filled the people of the French coast with forebodings. And now, awakened thus in the dead of night, the lonely Frenchman was wellnigh paralyzed with terror. With his flesh creeping, and his eyes wide, he groped for his rifle, and waited in the darkness, while ever and anon came those unearthly cries from the beach. Nearly an hour passed before he could gather himself together sufficiently to investigate the cause of the alarm. At last, when the piteous wailing had grown weak and intermittent, the instinct of humanity mastered his fears, and he went forth to give a possible succor to the one in need.