"Then all is not brandy that she brings over?"
"Brandy!" said the captain, with a bitter smile. "They would be welcome to all the brandy she carries to-night, or to double the freight, if that were all. She has a cargo of French silks, French claret, ay, and French gold, that she must fight for while she has a stick standing."
At this moment, the sky, dark as it was before, grew tenfold darker, and a cloud, that gave me the exact image of a huge black velvet pall, suddenly dropped down and completely covered both vessels; no firing was heard for a time, even the yell of the gust had sunk; nothing was heard but the billow, as it groaned along the hollow shore. The same thought occurred to us both at once. "Those brave boys are all in their coffin together," slowly murmured my companion. There was neither shout nor even word among the crowd; while every eye and ear was strained, and the men began to run along the water's edge to find a fragment of the wrecks, or assist some struggler for life in the surge. But the cloud, which absolutely lay upon the water, suddenly burst open, with a roar of thunder, as if split from top to bottom by the bolt, and both were seen. A sheet of lightning, which, instead of the momentary flash, hung quivering from the zenith, showed both vessels with a lurid distinctness infinitely clearer than day. Every remaining shroud and rope, every wound of mast or yard, every shot-hole, nay, every rib and streak of the hulls, was as distinctly visible as if they had been illuminated from within. But their decks, as the heave of the surge threw them towards us, showed a fearful spectacle. The dying and the dead, flung along the gangways, the wounded clinging to the gun carriages or masts, a few still loading the guns, which neither had now hands enough to manœuvre; yet both ships still flying on, shattered and torn, and looking, in the wild light, like two gigantic skeletons.
The lugger now fired a rocket, and sent up a striped flag, the signal of distress. A cry for "The boats!" was echoed along the shore, and eight or ten were speedily started from their hiding places and dragged down the shingle. Stout hearts and strong hands were in them without loss of time, and they dashed into the storm. But their efforts were wholly useless. No strength of oars could stand against such a gale. Some were swamped at once, the men hardly escaping with their lives. The rest were tossed like dust upon the wind, and dashed high on shore. All was hopeless. Another rocket went up, and by its ghastly blaze I caught a glimpse of the captain. He had been either forced from his hold on the rocks by the wind, or fallen through exhaustion. His bronzed face was was now as pale as the sand on which he lay; he was the very image of despair. Thinking that he had fainted, and fearing that, in this helpless state, he might be swept away by the next surge—for the spray was now bursting over us at every swell—I laid hold of his hand to drag him higher up the cliff after me. As if the grasp had given him a renewed life, he sprang on his feet, and saying, in a distracted tone, which I alone could hear, "Better be drowned than ruined!" he cried out with the voice of a maniac, "Boys, sink or swim, here I go! Five guineas for every man who gets on board." Tearing off his heavy coat, he rushed forward at the words, and plunged headlong into the billow. There was a general rush after him; some were thrown back on the sand, but about half the number were enabled to reach the lugger. We quickly saw the effect of even this reinforcement. At the very point of time when the cruiser was about to lay her on board, she came sharply round by the head, and discharged her broadside within pistol-shot. I could see the remaining mast of the cruiser stagger; it made two or three heaves, like a drunkard trying to recover his steps, then came a crash, and it went over the side. The vessel recoiled, and being now evidently unable to steer, the storm had her at its mercy; and the last we saw of her was a hull, rolling and staggering away down the Channel, firing guns of distress, and going headforemost toward the Bay of Biscay.
Need I say in what triumph the lugger was hauled up the sand, or how her bold commander and hardy crew were received? But while a carouse was preparing for them—and, it must be owned that if sailing and fighting were claims, they had earned their suppers—the business portion of the firm was in full activity. From the waggon down to the wheelbarrow, every country means of carriage was in motion without delay. I had been hitherto by no means aware of what Johnson would probably have called "the vehicular opulence" of the Sussex shore. Nor had I ever a more striking illustration of the proverbial lightness of the work of many hands; a process, which in his solemn lips would probably have been, "Sir, congregated thousands laugh at individual difficulty; delay vanishes before united labour; and time is an element of toil no more."
The clearance of the cargo would have put all the machinery of a royal dockyard to shame. As for the activity of the custom-house, it would have been the movement of a tortoise, to the rapidity of whatever is most rapid in unpacking or pilfering. But pilfering here we had none; we were all "men of honour;" and, undoubtedly, if any propensity to mistake the tuum for the meum had been exhibited, there were among us sufficient of the stamp of my old friend "who had served with Rodney," to have flung the culprit where men pilfer no more; whatever may be done by porpoises.
But as I had no wish to be a party to what, with all its gaiety and gallantry, I felt to be a rough infraction of the law; I now begged permission to make my way homewards. It was given at once, with even some expressions of gratitude for my having, as it was termed, stood by them to the last; and a guide was ordered for me as an additional civility. "You will have five miles to walk," said the captain, as he shook hands with me; "but Grapnel here will take you the shortest way and it will be light in an hour. You need say nothing of this business to Mordecai, who makes a point of being deaf and dumb when ever it suits him; though, between ourselves."—The captain's prudence here checked his overflow of confidence. "I merely mean to say, that if you drink any particularly fine claret, in a day or two, at his table, you will have to thank the lugger, La Belle Jeannette, for it. Au revoir."
My guide and I pushed on into the darkness. He was a bluff, open-hearted fellow, with all the smuggler's hatred of the magistracy, and taking great delight in telling how often they failed in their attempts to stop the "free trade," which he clearly regarded as the only trade worthy of a man. His account of the feats of his comrades; their escapes from the claws of the customs; their facetious tricks on the too vigilant among the magistrates; and the real luxury in which, with all their life of hardship, they found opportunities of indulging, would have edified a modern tour writer, and possibly relieved even the dreariness of a county historian. Among other matters too, he let out, that he paid me a prodigious compliment in accompanying me, as this night's smuggling was one of the grand exploits of the year; and casting a "longing, lingering look, behind," where a distant glimmer marked the scene of operations, he evidently halted between the two opinions, whether to go on, or return. "What a glorious night!" he exclaimed, as he turned his bald forehead to a sky black as Erebus, and roaring with whirlwind. "Talk of sunshine, or moonshine, compared with that!" Another burst of rain, or flash of lightning, would evidently have rendered the scene too captivating. Both came, and I must have lost my guide, when he stopped short, and in a half whisper, asked me, "whether I heard anything?" Before I could return a word, he had flung himself on the ground, with his ear to the sward, and after a moment's listening, said, "here they come!"
"Who come? There is neither sight nor sound between us and Brighton. Are you thinking of the custom-house officers?"
The look which I had the benefit of seeing by a blue blaze from the zenith, and the tone of infinite scorn, in which he slowly repeated the words, "custom-house officers," were incomparable. "Afraid of them!" said he, as he rose from the wet heather, "as much afraid as the cat is of the mice. No, those are the dragoons from Lewes."