“Oh, Edward! what a glorious sight!” said the maiden to her lover, who had stepped to her side, as she gained the deck. “Look, father! look at that splendid ship, doesn’t she cleave the waters ‘like a thing of life?’ But what is the matter, Edward? You are silent, and seem dejected, do tell me?”
“In a moment, dearest,” he whispered, as he left her to approach the captain, who had beckoned to him.
“Mr. Talbot,” said the last, “my little craft is in great peril, and less than an hour must decide her fate. The Spaniard will not be silent much longer, and I advise you to get the passengers below.”
“I was about to propose it,” replied Talbot, and returning to Miss Gillespie’s side, said, “summon your fortitude, Mary, the ship which you admire so much, is a Spanish frigate, and is endeavoring to capture the vessel we are in.”
“Oh, how unfortunate! and will they harm us? Can they hurt you and father and Frank? Good God! what is that?” and she shrieked as the ship luffed to the wind, and fired a shot, which went plunging across the bows of the schooner.
“Come below, dearest! come quickly! Help me, Mr. Gillespie, for she has nearly fainted.”
The maiden and her father were conducted to the most secure place below, when, resisting the entreaties of his mistress, Talbot returned to the deck, which Frank had refused to leave.
At the first report of the frigate’s gun, the captain had called out, “Edge her away, quarter-master, keep her off a point; let the guns alone,” he added, addressing some of the crew, “let them be, it would be worse than useless to fire them—the ‘Bird’ must now trust to her wings alone.”
The little vessel was in fact at the very crisis of her fate. The last shot had told that they were within reach of the guns of the enemy; they felt that their only avenue of escape was through a gauntlet of fire, and that the loss of a single spar would certainly insure their capture. It seemed perfect madness for such a wee thing to abide the wrath of the huge leviathan, panoplied in thunder, and possessing almost the power of annihilation. But, in the forlorn and desperate hope of sustaining the enemy’s fire for a few moments, without material injury her captain steadily pursued his way, but cut his anchors from the bow, and threw four of his guns overboard. If the wind had been light, the schooner’s chance would have been a fair one; but the breeze instead of lulling, seemed to freshen as the sun went down. As it was, however, there was a bare possibility of escape, for already the little vessel, lightened of so much weight, began to increase her velocity—still there was an abiding, a stunning fear of being sunk or disabled by the broadside of the frigate. The latter had already opened her fire, and near the chase, the fierce, iron hail had fairly lashed the water into foam, but the schooner was yet materially unharmed, when a voice more potent than that of gunpowder, hushed the loud artillery.
Unobserved by either, a light and fleecy speck, more like a wift of smoke than a fragment of a cloud, had risen over the land, and swift as a meteor shot across the sky. It was what sailors term a “white squall,” and it had caught the chaser and the chased wholly unprepared. Almost simultaneously it struck them both. The frigate's fore-mast and main-topmast went by the board, and every sail that was set, was blown into perfect shreds. The “Humming Bird,” light and resistless, felt the blast but to succumb before it—she was whirled over and capsized in an instant. A number of the crew, entangled in the sails and rigging were immediately drowned. The remainder clambered to the upper-rail, to which they clung with the tenacity that endangered life. In a paroxysm of anguish, Talbot had thrown himself down the cabin-hatchway as he felt the vessel going over, and at imminent hazard had rescued Miss Gillespie, but her father and the servant-maid perished. Frank had been saved by one of the seamen, who held him firmly with one hand, while with the other he clung to the shrouds.