Day had hardly dawned when we were all three up, and overhauling the mud and weeds—the tide was quite gone out—for the captured boat and tubs. They had vanished utterly: the fairies about Weston had spirited them away while we slept, leaving no vestige whatever of the spoil to which we had naturally looked as some trifling compensation for the night's mishap, and the loss of the watermen's boat, to say nothing of the sousing we had got. It was a bad business certainly, and my promise to provide my helpmates with another boat, should their own not be recovered, soothed but very slightly their sadly-ruffled tempers. But lamentations were useless, and, after the lugubrious expression of a dismal hope for better luck next time, we separated.
This pleasant incident did not in the least abate my anxiety to get once more within hailing distance of the Barnabys; but for a long time my efforts were entirely fruitless, and I had begun to think that the Blue-eyed Maid had been permanently transferred to another and less vigilantly watched station, when a slight inkling of intelligence dispelled that fear. My plan was soon formed. I caused it to be carelessly given out on shore that the Rose had sprung her bowsprit in the gale a day or two before, and was going the next afternoon into Portsmouth to get another. In pursuance of this intention, the Rose soon after noon slipped her moorings, and sailed for that port; remained quietly there till about nine o'clock in the evening, and then came out under close-reefed storm canvas, for it was blowing great guns from the northward, and steered for the Southampton river. The night was as black as pitch; and but for the continuous and vivid flashes of lightning, no object more than a hundred yards distant from the vessel could have been discerned. We ran up abeam of Hythe without perceiving the object of our search, then tacked, stood across to the other side, and then retraced our course. We were within a short distance of Hamble River, when a prolonged flash threw a ghastly light upon the raging waters, and plainly revealed the Blue-eyed Maid, lying-to under the lee of the north shore, and it may be about half a mile ahead of us. Unfortunately she saw us at the same moment, and as soon as way could be got upon her she luffed sharply up, and a minute afterward was flying through the water in the hope of yet escaping her unexpected enemy. By edging away to leeward
I contrived to cut her off effectually from running into the channel by the Needles passage; but nothing daunted, she held boldly on without attempting to reduce an inch of canvas, although, from the press she carried, fairly buried in the sea. Right in the course she was steering, the Donegal, a huge eighty-gun ship, was riding at anchor off Spithead. Old Barnaby, who, I could discern by his streaming white hairs, was at the helm, in his anxiety to keep as well to windward of us as possible, determined, I suppose, to pass as closely as he prudently could under the stern of the line-of-battle ship. Unfortunately, just as the little cutter was in the act of doing so, a furious blast of wind tore away her jib as if it had been cobweb; and, pressed by her large mainsail, the slight vessel flew up into the wind, meeting the Donegal as the huge ship drove back from a strain which had brought her half way to her anchors. The crash was decisive, and caused the instant disappearance of the unfortunate smuggler. The cry of the drowning men, if they had time to utter one, was lost amid the raging of the tempest; and although we threw overboard every loose spar we could lay hands on, it was with scarcely the slightest hope that such aid could avail them in that wild sea. I tacked as speedily as possible, and repassed the spot; but the white foam of the waves, as they leaped and dashed about the leviathan bulk of the Donegal, was all that could be perceived, eagerly as we peered over the surface of the angry waters. The Rose then stood on, and a little more than an hour afterward was safely anchored off Hythe.
The boy Barnaby, I was glad to hear a day or two afterward, had not accompanied his father and grandfather in the last trip made by the Blue-eyed Maid, and had consequently escaped the fate which had so suddenly overtaken them, and for which it appeared that the smuggling community held me morally accountable. This was to be expected; but I had too often and too lately been familiar with death at sea in every shape, by the rage of man as well as that of the elements, to be more than slightly and temporarily affected by such an incident; so that all remembrance of it would probably have soon passed away but for an occurrence which took place about a month subsequently. One of the officers of the shore-force received information that two large luggers, laden with brandy and tobacco from Guernsey, were expected the following night on some point of the coast between Hamble and Weston; and that as the cargoes were very valuable, a desperate resistance to the coast-guard, in the event of detection, had been organized. Our plan was soon arranged. The Rose was sent away with barely enough men to handle her, and with the remainder of the crew, I, as soon as night fell, took up a position a little above Netley Abbey. Two other detachments of the coast-guard were posted along the shore at intervals of about a mile, all of course connected by signal-men not more than a hundred yards apart. There was a faint starlight, but the moon would not rise till near midnight; and
from this circumstance, as well as from the state of the tides, we could pretty well calculate when to expect our friends, should they come at all. It was not long before we were quite satisfied, from the stealthy movements of a number of persons about the spot, that the information we had received was correct. Just after eleven o'clock a low, peculiar whistle, taken up from distance to distance, was heard; and by placing our ears to the ground, the quick jerk of oars in the rullocks was quite apparent. After about five minutes of eager restlessness, I gave the impatiently-expected order; we all emerged from our places of concealment, and with cautious but rapid steps advanced upon the by this time busy smugglers. The two luggers were beached upon the soft sand or mud, and between forty and fifty men were each receiving two three-gallon kegs, with which they speeded off to the carts in waiting at a little distance. There were also about twenty fellows ranged as a guard, all armed as efficiently as ourselves. I gave the word; but before we could close with the astonished desperadoes, they fired a pistol volley, by which one seaman, John Batley, a fine, athletic young man, was killed, and two others seriously wounded. This done, the scoundrels fled in all directions, hotly pursued, of course. I was getting near one of them, when a lad, who was running by his side, suddenly turned, and raising a pistol, discharged it at my head. He fortunately missed his mark, though the whistle of the bullet was unpleasantly close. I closed with and caught the young rascal, who struggled desperately, and to my extreme surprise, I had almost written dismay, discovered that he was young Barnaby! It was not a time for words, and hastily consigning the boy to the custody of the nearest seaman, with a brief order to take care of him, I resumed the pursuit. A bootless one it proved. Favored by their numbers, their perfect acquaintance with the hedge-and-ditch neighborhood, the contrabandists all contrived to escape. The carts also got off, and our only captures were the boy, the luggers, which there had been no time to get off, and their cargoes, with the exception of the few kegs that had reached the carts.
The hunt after the dispersed smugglers was continued by the different parties who came in subsequently to our brush with them, so that after the two wounded seamen had been carried off on litters, and a sufficient guard left in the captured boats, only two men remained with me. The body of John Batley was deposited for the present in one of the luggers, and then the two sailors and myself moved forward to Itchen with the prisoner, where I intended to place him in custody for the night.
The face of the lad was deadly pale, and I noticed that he had been painfully affected by the sight of the corpse; but when I addressed him, his expressive features assumed a scornful, defying expression. First ordering the two men to drop astern out of hearing, I said: "You will be hanged for your share in this night's work, young man, depend upon it."
"Hanged!" he exclaimed in a quick, nervous tone; "hanged! You say that to frighten me! It was not I who shot the man! You know that; or perhaps," he added with a kind of hysterical cry, "perhaps you want to kill me as you did father."
"I have no more inclination, my poor boy," I answered, "to injure you than I had to harm your father. Why, indeed, should I have borne him any ill-will?"
"Why should you? Oh, I know very well!"