Notwithstanding the promised assistance of the French lieutenant, Mr Leigh felt considerable anxiety as to what might be the fate of the frigate. The French crew might still rise and attempt to retake the prize should they find themselves at a distance from the “Sylvia.” The coast, too, was dangerous in the extreme, and it might be found impossible to reach the channel through which it was proposed to pass. Before sail could be made the frigate might be driven on the rocks under her lee, or the sails, if set, might be blown to tatters before she could again be brought to an anchor. With forebodings of evil, Lieutenant Leigh paced the deck. The night passed slowly away; when morning dawned the “Sylvia” was nowhere to be seen. The gale blew as furiously as ever. Captain Stanhope, in the crippled state to which his ship had been reduced by the action, although she had suffered much less than her opponent, had evidently considered it his duty to keep off the shore. “I should have done the same,” thought Mr Leigh. “He would have risked the ‘Sylvia’s’ safety by coming to our assistance. It was right to leave us to our fate.”
Although a long scope of cable had been run out, the “Venus” rode uneasily over the heavy seas which came rolling in. Now she rose, now she pitched into them, as they passed under her, while the spray in thick showers broke over her bows.
Still the stout cable held, although the lieutenant cast many an anxious look astern, where little more than a quarter of a mile away the breakers burst with a continual roar on the rock-bound coast. They could distinguish the entrance to the passage some distance to the northward, but even had all the masts of the “Venus” been standing, and a strong crew been ready to make sail, the difficulty of gaining it would have been very great. Should the French prisoners have succeeded in carrying out their design, the frigate would have been cast away. The fate of the wounded would have been certain, and few of those on board would have escaped.
Ashurst still continued his ill-treatment of Owen. Nat saw him again strike him.
“It is the last time he shall do that,” exclaimed Nat, who was a witness of what took place.
Without speaking to Owen, he hurried aft to where Mr Leigh was standing.
“Please, sir, I’ve something to say to you,” said Nat, touching his hat.
“What is it, boy?” asked the lieutenant, concluding that Nat had to give him some information regarding the conduct of the French prisoners. “Are the fellows down below inclined to be mutinous?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” answered Nat; “but what I want to say is about Mr Owen Hartley, who first found out their plot and saved us all from having our throats cut. He is a gentleman, sir, and came out with us as a passenger on board the ‘Druid,’ and I think, sir, if this had been known, he would not have been sent forward amongst us boys. Mr Scoones, our first mate, who pretended to be the captain, knows it as well as I do, but he had a spite against Mr Hartley, and so declared that he was a ship’s boy, and allowed him to be rated as such on board the ‘Sylvia.’ Mike Coffey, who belonged to the old ship, will tell you, sir, that what I say is true.”
“I am ready to believe what you say, and when we return on board the frigate I will speak to the captain on the subject. But what makes you come up now to say this? I wish that you had given me the information before.”