“The Harpy goes nobly through it!” he exclaimed. “Blow, sweet breeze! blow for another hour steadily—bring me alongside that splendid frigate—and then, Dame Fortune! thy spoiled child shall tax thee no further.”
He paused; took two or three turns across the cabin, and then resumed the strain of former conversation.
“Time presses—and now, Rawlings, for another disclosure. Three years ago I returned to England,—‘The happy deed that gilds my humble name was done—I obtained promotion for the service—and wherever I appeared, flattering tokens of popular approbation were heaped on me with unmeasured liberality. Men cheered me as I passed, and—prouder honour—woman smiled upon the daring sailor. To the highest circles the curate’s son was introduced: my passport, à coup de sabre, which finished a French captain, and enabled me to lay hands on the halliards of a frigate’s ensign, before those of fifty stout boarders as myself. I met a woman: she was older than myself a year or two; noble by birth; and for beauty, if you sought England over—and that is beauty’s home—you could not find her peer. She was followed and worshipped: the proudest claimed her smiles, and the noblest coronet was offered for her acceptance. Chance introduced me to her father; and I was a casual visitor at his house, with men distinguished for both high birth and unbounded wealth. Would it be credited that I was preferred by that proud lady to all who sought her hand? I—the ocean child—before a crowd of nobles—the humble sailor loved by the fiancée of a duke! ’Tis over;—she is another’s now: and with the heart that fate forbade being united to mine, the mutual secret rests.
“You know enough to understand the service I require. If in the approaching conflict my brief career shall close, the story of my love must perish with me. In this sealed packet there are memorials, that, living, I could not part with, and, in death, must be destroyed. It is leaded—and should I fall, consign it to the same element where I shall find a grave. Farewell! I feel a strange assurance, that with this day’s events, whatever they may prove, my history is doomed to terminate. No matter! Where could it close more gloriously?”
He said, and quitted the cabin for the deck; and when I had secured the sealed packet in my breast, I followed him.
The chase had now assumed an interest almost impossible to be imagined. Both frigates, in the parlance of the sea, were “staggering under a press of canvass;” and the goal for which each vessel strained was a small harbour, with a narrow entrance through the centre of a reef of rocks. There, the Frenchman expected to find his safety—and we endeavoured to cut him off from this his haven of inglorious refuge. We were still two gun-shots astern—the harbour not a league off—the wind began to fail—and as the Harpy sailed best with a stiff breeze, we lost the advantage we had formerly possessed in speed. Indeed, the Frenchman’s escape seemed almost certain. He must gain the anchorage before we could bring him to close action; and, daring as our captain was, surely he would not venture into a roadstead on every side surrounded with heavy batteries, and approachable through a narrow opening in a reef of rocks?
Alas! Fortune may be tried too frequently—and even her chosen favourites will prove her at times capricious. Again, the breeze freshened, and the Harpy drew fast a-head. The vessels were now within cannon range—the chase-guns of both had opened—and at the third discharge from ours, the main-top-mast of the Frenchman came down. It is probable that fatal success induced our captain to take the step he did. Instead of bringing his frigate to the wind, he held his course, and desperately ran into a hostile harbour from which it was decreed we never should return.
The result of this rash act was brilliant as it proved disastrous. After a close engagement of forty minutes, the enemy’s frigate was totally dismasted, and driven—a wreck—upon the rocks; and Captain O’Brien having completed her destruction, endeavoured to work the Harpy out.
For a time we suffered but trifling injury from the cross-fire of the batteries, and it was almost certain that we should weather the tail of the reef, and clear the entrance of the harbour. The frigate was in stays. “She’ll do it easily,” exclaimed the master; while Captain O’Brien, with a smile of exultation, whispered in my ear, “What think you, Rawlings, of the fortunes of the curate’s son? Hold on the packet—my star has saved us!” Alas! his exultation was but short-lived. A thirty-two-pound shot struck us as he spoke: the foretop-mast went over the side—we missed stays, fell off to leeward, and settled on the reef, within musket-range of the heaviest battery.
The seas struck the vessel so fast and heavily that it was quite apparent she would speedily go to pieces. The captain fell mortally wounded. He turned a dying look to me: I understood its silent order; and the packet which contained the memorials of his secret love was committed to the deep.