KATE AYLESFORD
A STORY OF THE REFUGEES
BY CHARLES J. PETERSON
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said
This is my own, my native land.”
—Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Philadelphia:
T. B. PETERSON, NO. 102 CHESTNUT STREET.
BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.
NEW YORK: J. C. DERBY.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
A. H. SIMMONS & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
CONTENTS
[ XXI. AYLESFORD AND MRS. WARREN]
[ XXXIII. THE SACK OF CHESTNUT NECK]
[ XLVIII. THE AYLESFORD MANSION]
CHAPTER I.
THE NIGHT AT SEA
“Beautiful!
I linger yet with nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man.” — Byron.
“The silver light, with quivering glance,
Play’d on the water’s still expanse.” — Scott.
It was out on the broad Atlantic. The sun had just set, red and colossal, behind a bank of clouds, leaving the whole firmament around him in a blaze of glory. Far along the western horizon, where the hollow dome of the sky cut the level plain of waters, a streak of vivid gold was seen, which grew less and less luminous, however, as it curved around to north and south, until finally it faded off, at either extremity, into the misty shadows of approaching night. Above this were piled, in gorgeous confusion, purple and crimson clouds, the warmer colors becoming fainter as they ascended, until a gold apple green prevailed. This itself subsided, towards the zenith, into a pure, transparent blue, in whose fathomless depths appeared a solitary silver star, that shone there like the altar light, which twinkles alone in the profound obscurity of some vast and silent cathedral.
Two persons, on the quarter-deck of an armed merchant man, were gazing at this scene. One was an elderly lady, precise in dress and look, the very type of a conventional and somewhat pompous old dowager. Her companion was a young girl just budding into womanhood, and of a beauty as peculiar as it was dazzling. The attitude in which she stood, though assumed without a thought, was just that which an artist would have chosen for her. The tiny left foot, with its high instep and slender ankle, peeped from beneath her petticoat as she leaned on her right arm to watch the sunset; the round shoulder, white as milk, yet with a warm tint like rich Carrara marble, was slightly elevated; while the shapely set of the swan-like neck, the trim waist, and the undulating outline of her whole person were more than ordinarily conspicuous. As she stood, her head was partially turned, so that one could see that her complexion was brilliantly clear; that she had a small, red and pouting mouth; that her eyes were so darkly blue as to seem almost purple; and that her hair, which swept in rippling masses from her forehead, as in a Greek statue, was of that rare color, which, though brown in shadow, flashes into fleeting gold whenever a sunbeam strikes it.
“How beautiful!” she said, after a long silence, drawing a deep breath that seemed almost a sigh.
The words, though rather a soliloquy than a remark intended for her companion, nevertheless drew a reply from the latter.
“Yes! niece,” answered the dame, briskly, “I wish our cousin, Lord Danville, could see this sunset. He won’t believe that we have skies, in America, equal to those of Italy.”
“We must be near the coast,” said the niece, after another long pause. “We don’t find such sunsets up on the Banks.”
“In about two days we shall be at New York, the captain says.”
There was a third silence. The clouds in the west had now lost most of their gorgeous tints. They were generally of a deep purple, almost approaching to black, with only their edges tinged here and there with gold or crimson. Instead of lying, in fleecy piles, or hanging like thick curtains drawn partially aside, as they had awhile before, they were broken up into all sorts of fantastic shapes: castles and battlements, mountains and deep valleys, towers and spires, vast elephantine forms and figures, gigantic and weird as the Brocken: airy dissolving views that were every moment changing.
One mass of these clouds the two persons we have introduced continued to watch for some time. At first it had attracted their attention by its striking similarity to Gibraltar, as it stretched darkly along the horizon, like a colossal sleeping lion. Gradually the vapors spread horizontally, and became almost shapeless. Then, suddenly, they assumed form again, and there, plain to even the most unimaginative, was an old woman in a short-gown, with one foot angrily uplifted, a pipe in her mouth, and the most grotesque of all caps upon her head.
A light, silvery laugh broke from the young girl, and clapping her hands, gleefully, she cried,
“Aunt, aunt, see!”
Even the stately dame smiled, but only for a moment, when she looked more prim than ever, as if fearing she had lowered her dignity.
“The moon will rise directly,” she said, crossing to the opposite side of the ship, whither her niece soon followed her.
In the eastern sky, the clouds were now of the richest amber, while under them the ocean was suffused with a delicate rosy hue. These tints slowly faded from both the firmament and sea, and darkness began to accumulate upon the prospect. In the course of a quarter of an hour, night had settled down. And now there appeared above a bank of cloud, that lay like a range of dark hills on the seaboard, the upper edge of the moon’s disc. Instantaneously a bit of moonlight glimmered on the waters close under the side of the ship. As the planet gradually rose from behind the cloud, like some huge burnished ball of copper, the line of light extended itself to the eastern horizon, a tremulous bridge of silver.
It was but a little while, however, that the bright orb shone unclouded. The whole firmament, indeed, was fast becoming flecked by vapory masses: and one of these soon floated between the moon and the spectators. In a few moments the planet was entirely concealed. But far away, almost on the utmost verge of the horizon, her light, still shining from behind the cloud, lay on the waters beneath, like a silver lake on a blue and solitary plain. Gradually this began to contract, lessening and lessening until it seemed a mere thread of light along the seaboard; and then a low, white sand-bank: after which it vanished altogether. Simultaneously the upper edge of the obscuring cloud showed a faint pearly lining, which the instant after brightened into silver. Soon the tip of the moon’s disc appeared; and once more the waves beneath the spectators began to glitter with the planet’s wake, which directly bridged the undulating deep again; the crests of the dark waves, and even their higher sides, sparkling and shining as if discharging electricity.
“It is like a scene in the Arabian Nights,” enthusiastically exclaimed the younger female. “But see,” she added, shortly after, “see again!” The animated speaker caught her aunt’s arm, as she spoke, while she pointed to a new variation in the brilliant scene before them.
Another cloud was now approaching the moon, and in such a way, that its shadow fell like a bridge of ebony, right across her wake. In a few minutes, the planet had vanished a second time; a second time the lake of silver shone on the far-off plain of blue; the white coast-line followed; the momentary darkness recurred again; and the moon again emerging, walked up the firmament, in cloudless majesty, like some majestic, white-robed virgin.
For nearly an hour the two females remained watching the changes of this lovely night. Not the least beautiful spectacle were the moonbeams shining on the snowy sails, which rose above the beholders, cloud on cloud, until the upper ones almost seemed lost in the sky. The single star still twinkled over head, swinging backwards and forwards past the mainmast, as the ship careened and rose in the freshening breeze.
Few words were spoken. The younger of the two passengers, absorbed completely in the loveliness of the night, had lost herself in a succession of those bewitching dreams which haunt the imagination in youth. The dim obscurity of the scene, when the moon was hidden for any considerable period, affected her with a sense as of the presence of eternity; and when her relative, complaining that the air grew cool, proposed an adjournment to the cabin, she was astonished to see her niece’s eyes full of tears.
“I think it will rain,” said the aunt, scarcely knowing what to say, yet wishing to dissipate what she supposed must be sad thoughts of the past.
“The wind sighs mournfully,” answered her companion, vacantly, as if pursuing some secret train of thought, “mournfully as a lost child, alone on a moor, calling for its mother.”
Again the dame looked at her. But there were often thoughts and feelings in the imaginative niece, which the good prosaic lady could not comprehend; and so she wisely made no reply, but called the captain, who stood not far off.
“Will we continue to have clear weather, captain?” she said. “It would be a pity, after so fine a voyage, to meet a storm at the end.”
“A night like this is no sign of the morrow, ma’am,” was the reply. “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if it was to blow great guns before morning. The wind has a treacherous feel about it.”
“Dear me, you frighten us,” exclaimed the good lady, with a slight scream, and visibly turning paler.
“Your niece does not look scared, at any rate, Mrs. Warren,” said the captain, laughingly, as the young girl raised herself, proud and self-collected, at her aunt’s remark. “I confess that I almost regret we have had no storm,” he added, “for I would like to see Miss Aylesford’s courage put to the test. She looks as if nothing would make her afraid.”
“Oh! she’ll be the death of me yet,” replied the aunt, “she’s so reckless. You’d tremble to see her ride, captain, leaping fences and galloping like a wild huntsman. She’ll get thrown and killed yet: she has, all the time, such fractious horses; I never had a minute’s peace in England, and I’m sure I shan’t have any here either.”
“Never fear, aunty,” said the niece, affectionately, putting her arm around the other’s waist, and yet with something of the manner with which one would soothe a timorous child. “I’ll not be so lucky as to be thrown romantically from my horse, like heroines in novels, and rescued by some handsome cavalier—”
“Nonsense, child.”
“Whom I shall marry, of course—”
“How foolish you talk.”
“Even if I run away with him—”
“Pshaw!” said the aunt, quite vexed, not noticing the laughing glance which her niece directed towards the captain.
“Well, come then, I was wrong,” said the gay girl, kissing her, “I won’t keep you out in this chill night air. See, I’ll wrap your shawl close about you. Captain Powell will take good care of us even if it does storm.”
With these words, they bade the captain good night and descended to their cabin. The skipper continued walking the deck, for some time, listening to the rising wind, and occasionally looking up to the clouds that now began to scud swiftly across the sky.
“I was foolish to say even a word to alarm the good old soul,” he remarked at last, as if conversing to himself. “I’ve seen worse nights than this turn into a clear morning. Besides, we have a stout ship and a good offing.”
So speaking, he dismissed all idea of possible danger.
CHAPTER II.
KATE AYLESFORD
“I love that dear old house! my mother lived there
Her first sweet marriage years. * * * *
The sunlight there seems to me brighter far
Than wheresoever else. I know the forms
Of every tree and mountain, hill and dell:
Its waters jingle like a tongue I know:
It is my home.” —Mrs. Frances K. Butler.
Kate Aylesford was an only child and an orphan. It had been her misfortune to lose her mother, at so early a period of life, that she retained no distinct remembrance of her, and could only recall a mild, sweet face, which, as in a dream, seemed to have looked down on her, far away in the past, like a Madonna in a picture.
Eighty years ago, when our story opens, the facilities for female education were small anywhere, for it was a generation when Hannah More was considered a prodigy and when to be able to write grammatically was regarded as all-sufficient, even for a gentlewoman. There were few good schools for girls in England, and none at all in America. Mr. Aylesford, the father of Kate, held a different, and as would be said in this day, a worthier estimate of woman, from that which was popular among his generation. He looked back with regret to the time when ladies studied Greek and read Virgil in the original. The story told of Lady Jane Grey, that she preferred to stay with her tutor, Ascham, and read Plato, rather than join the chase, was one of his favorites. He early resolved, accordingly, that his daughter should be educated in a better manner than was the fashion of the day. He declared she should be capable, as he phrased it, of being a companion for a husband, instead of a mere plaything: that is, he added, with the reverent piety which, without being Pharisaical, formed a main ingredient of his character, “if God willed she should be so blessed.” For, among his other old-fashioned notions, Mr. Aylesford held that a woman is never so fortunate as when a happy wife and mother.
Hence it was, that though he desired his daughter’s intellect to be cultivated, he took care that her moral qualities, using that word in its widest sense, should not run to waste. In order to have her properly educated, he had determined that she should go to England; but unwilling to trust her to a public school, he had sent out with her his sister, an elderly widow lady, the relict of an officer in the army. It was a hard trial for him to separate from his only child, and one so winning as Kate; for not only the fond father, but every one who knew her, declared her to be the life of the house. To the sweetness of her mother’s disposition, she added the gay heart which had distinguished her surviving parent when young. Fearless by nature, the life which she necessarily led, in a then comparatively wild district of the province of New Jersey, had given to her a courage and self-reliance above her sex and years: for not only at an age when girls generally are still in the nursery, had she learned to ride, so as to often accompany her father, but frequently, with no attendant but one or two stag-hounds, she galloped for half a morning through the woods. It was, perhaps, to her having spent her early years in this manner, that she owed her present blooming health and elastic step. Beauty is oftener the result of fresh air and exercise than of cosmetics.
Three years after her arrival in England, Mr. Aylesford died, leaving Kate one of the richest heiresses in the colonies. In part, her property consisted of houses and stores in the city of Philadelphia, and in part of vast tracts of land in the middle counties of West Jersey. The war between the colonies and mother country soon after broke out, and, for a while, it seemed as if the heiress was destined never to see her native land again. Her guardians were averse to her return to a country distracted by war, and her aunt, who, in spite of being an officer’s widow, was timorous to the last degree, seconded them. But Kate inherited the resolute spirit of her father, and had early resolved to return, as soon as she became mistress of herself. Her fixed determination at last influenced her guardians, so that, after she had left school and been presented at court, a favorable opportunity offering, they had consented to her wish. They were the more willing to concede the point, because, at that time, the royal arms seemed about to triumph; New York was in undisturbed possession of Sir Henry Clinton; and the portion of New Jersey, where her estates lay, was, according to the current reports in London, free from the presence of the enemy. We need not add that these guardians, as well as her aunt, were warm friends of the king. It was on this return voyage, after a successful run of thirty days, and when, as the captain calculated, forty-eight hours would bring them within sight of Neversink, that we have introduced Miss Aylesford to the reader.
A long time elapsed, even after she had retired to her berth, before Kate could sleep. A vague presentiment seemed to oppress her. In vain she closed her eyes. The gradually increasing wind, and the rush of the waters alongside, prevented slumber. Once or twice she forgot herself in a doze, but a louder shriek of the rising gale, or a sudden dash of some huge billow against the timbers at her head, roused her with a start. Still, as there was nothing of fear in her nature, these things did not agitate her. She never even thought that anything serious impended, for she had heard such sounds often before during the voyage. Finally, long after her aunt was lost in slumber, she fell asleep.
She was roused suddenly, some hours after, by the noise of her relative.
“Wake up, my child, wake, wake,” cried the good lady in accents of terror. “We are all going to the bottom. Oh! what shall we do?”
Kate sat up in bed and looked around. She and her aunt occupied the after cabin of the ship, which had been engaged exclusively for them; and this apartment was now lighted by a swinging lamp, which threw a faint yellowish hue on the surrounding objects. The floor of the cabin, rising almost perpendicularly, and then sinking again, showed that the ship pitched and rolled with unusual severity. Kate had never seen anything like it. Her aunt was dressing as rapidly as a person could, who had always to hold on to something with one hand, and often with two.
On deck, the hurrying of feet, the rattling of blocks, the creaking of yards, the sharp whistling of wind through the cordage, the quick, loud word of command, and other noisy and tumultuous sounds, betokened some important crisis. The roar of the sea had become almost deafening. It was, however, occasionally exceeded by the thunder of the gale, which now dying partially away, swelled again into a volume that overpowered everything else. At rare intervals, when other noises partially subsided, Kate fancied she could distinguish the rushing sound of rain.
The terror of her aunt called up all the courage of Miss Aylesford. Hastily attiring herself, she staggered across the cabin floor to her relative, and began to assist the latter’s shaking hands.
“They have fastened us down here, too, I suppose,” cried Mrs. Warren, in a tremulous voice. “We shall be drowned, without having a chance to get on deck.”
Kate herself knew not but that, in another moment, the ship might sink. Certainly, all she had ever read, or imagined, of a storm at sea, was nothing to this. She felt that if there was something tangible to meet, if she could only get on deck and see what was going on, she would be better able to face the peril.
“We are in God’s hands, you know, aunt. If you are not afraid of being left alone, I will try to reach the deck, and learn what is the matter—”
“Don’t, for mercy’s sake, leave me,” cried Mrs. Warren, clinging to her niece. “What shall I do down here alone?” But a tremendous surge, almost heaving the ship on her beam ends, a new terror overcame the dread of being left for a moment, and she cried, suddenly, “Yes, yes, go, go, and see what is the matter. Tell the captain we are in no hurry. Perhaps it’s his carrying so much sail, as he calls it, that makes the ship lean over so. Dear me, if I once get on dry land, I’ll never trust myself at sea again.”
Kate did not wait for a second permission. She crept along towards the forward cabin, which served for the dining room, reached the stairs, and clambered up with difficulty. A moment after she stood upon the deck.
The night was now pitch dark. A cold, heavy rain was falling, hissing and dancing as it struck the deck, and occasionally driving wildly past in an almost horizontal direction. But Kate did not for a while even know that it rained. Her entire energies were demanded to keep her feet, for between the violent motion of the ship, and the fury of the wind, she was nearly prostrated. When at last she had gained a slightly sheltered position, and found something to hold on by, she looked anxiously around.
The wide expanse of waters was black as ink, except where, here and there, the white caps flashed up. Miss Aylesford, in that first impressive moment, forgot all thought of possible peril, so overpowered was she by the dread majesty of the scene before her. She could liken it to nothing but the abyss of woe, surging its black waters from depths that no plummet could ever sound, impiously against heaven, which frowned in awful anger back; and the illusion was sustained by the white and ghastly objects which flitted across the vision, like spectres cast up from the profound below, and driven remorselessly past by inexorable fates.
But this feeling of awe and admiration lasted only for a moment. She remembered her terror-struck aunt below, and looked around to see if there was any person of whom she could inquire. But everybody seemed engaged in a struggle for life or death. A dim figure, in which she fancied she recognized the captain, stood at the helm, with a speaking trumpet at its mouth; while two stalwart forms grasped the spokes of the wheel; and other vague shapes hurried hither and thither across the deck through the darkness and storm. There was a wild confusion of orders, given so rapidly that she could distinguish no words, and of noises compounded of the wind and sea, so that she was almost stunned.
This rapid survey consumed but a moment. Looking down the sloping deck, she saw close under the lee of the ship what seemed a vortex of foaming water; and now, for the first time, she recognized a dull, sullen roar, which she knew to be that of breakers. At once the whole peril of their situation flashed upon her. Instead of being a hundred miles at sea, as Captain Powell had supposed, they were close upon the coast; and these superhuman exertions, which she saw master and crew making, were designed to get an offing for the vessel.
Suddenly a loud report was heard, like the discharge of a cannon in the air, and looking up, Kate saw what seemed a white cloud flying down to leeward.
“God have mercy on us,” she heard a voice cry, its sharp tone of agony rising over all the roar of wind and waters, “the main-topsail is gone. Look out, she strikes!”
At the same instant, Kate felt a shock, which precipitated her on her face, and instantaneously what appeared an ocean of water rushed over and submerged her.
CHAPTER III.
THE SHIPWRECK
“To hear
The roaring of the raging elements,
To know all human skill, all human strength,
Avail not; to look around, and only see
The mountain wave incumbent with its weight,
Of bursting waters o’er the reeling bark,—
Oh! God, this is indeed a dreadful thing.” —Southey.
“In breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless and sublime.
Each zone
Obeys thee, thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.” —Byron.
In a moment, however, the brave girl struggled to her feet. Her first thought was of her aunt. She was about groping her way down to the cabin, for the purpose of seeking Mrs. Warren, when the latter’s voice was heard, faint with terror, calling on her name.
“Here I am, aunt,” answered Kate, as cheerfully as she could. She held out her hand, which Mrs. Warren eagerly caught.
At any other time Kate’s sense of the ludicrous would have overcome her at the figure of her aunt. The good lady had only had time to huddle on the most necessary garments, and some of these were even awry; while the elegancies of the toilet, about which the stately dame was so particular, were totally neglected for once. It was the fashion in those days, for elderly matrons, to wear a cushion on the top of the head, over which to comb the hair; but this was now wholly wanting to Mrs. Warren, and her hair, usually so precisely arranged, and so carefully powdered, hung in tangled elf-locks about her face. The whole of her person and dress, moreover, was dripping, like that of some Triton just risen from the sea. Could the excellent old creature have seen her image reflected in a glass, she would have fainted outright from shame and outraged propriety. But mortal fear had now so conquered every other sensation, that when she rushed into her niece’s arms, it was with the paramount feeling that in Kate’s heroic character was the only hope at this frightful juncture.
“Hold fast under the lee of this bulwark,” said the niece. “It’s the safest place I can find.”
Her aunt mechanically obeyed, without reply, for her increasing fear had now deprived her of the power of speech.
The tremendous shock with which the ship struck, had snapped off the masts as if they had been pipe-stems, and Kate’s next thought, after having temporarily provided for the safety of her aunt, was what was to be done with the wreck of spars and rigging, which, beating against the vessel’s sides, threatened to crush them like egg-shells. Suddenly, through the gloom, she saw a figure, armed with an axe, creep along by the larboard bulwarks, until it had attained a favorable position, when it began cutting away with rapid strokes at the hamper. In this person she had no difficulty in recognizing the captain, who continued skillfully and rapidly dealing his blows, though often half submerged in water, until the confused mass began to give way, and rushing into the boiling vortex, was swept down to leeward. Other strokes from other axes were heard simultaneously, and a moment after the remaining masts, with their complicated yards and canvass, went off also into the wild maelstrom.
While some of the officers and men had been thus engaged in freeing the wreck, others had turned their attention to giving warning of their situation, in case assistance was near. Accordingly, the masts had scarcely been whirled away by the tumultous surge, when a bright jet of flame shot out from the starboard side of the ship; and the solemn boom of a signal gun went forth across the night. Discharge followed discharge, at regular periods, the crew listening eagerly, during the interval, to detect an answering sound, if any should be made. The profound darkness in which the vessel was enveloped was dissipated, for an instant, at each discharge; and the anxious faces of the crew, the desolate decks, and the vexed ocean, stood out, as if revealed by a lightning-flash; but the sudden gleam passed as quickly as it came, a darkness followed, apparently the deeper from the blaze of light; and horror, gloom, and dread fell again on all.
For a considerable time the signal-guns continued to be fired, but when the sailors found that no answer came, a recklessness seized them, the offspring of despair acting on brutal, animal natures. They first began to murmur in undertones; then to refuse doing duty; and finally they left the gun in a body, swearing that there was no use in further efforts. In vain the captain, rushing among them, endeavored to bring them back to discipline; they either sullenly slunk away or openly defied him; and he soon found that he could not even count on his mates, but would probably be murdered if he persisted in his endeavor. In a little while everything was in confusion. The crew, breaking into the spirit-room, speedily became intoxicated, and all semblance even of order was now lost.
While some of the seamen were still lingering in the spirit-room, a cry arose that the ship was breaking up; and immediately a rush was made for the boats by the intoxicated crew. Here again the captain attempted to interpose his authority; but he was knocked down, trampled on, and indeed came near losing his life. It was soon found that but one boat remained fit to use, the others having been stove. Into this the rebellious crew tumbled pell-mell, the mates following; and such was the hurry of the affrighted fugitives, that they forgot to secure either water or provisions.
The whole of these events, from the ceasing to fire signal-guns up to the present period, had followed each other in the quickest succession. Indeed they appeared to have consumed less time than we have taken to describe them.
The boat had been filled and manned, but just as it was pushing off, a voice cried—
“Captain Powell, you may come aboard, if you like”
“No,” was the prompt answer; “I’ll stick by the ship, you mutinous rascals.”
“As you please,” answered the speaker. “But there are the passengers. Ladies, will you come aboard? Make up your minds quick.”
At this the captain rushed to where Kate was standing.
“Don’t go,” he cried, eagerly. “They’ll all be drowned. No boat can live five minutes.”
Kate hesitated. She was inexperienced, and knew not what to do. On the one hand it seemed inconceivable that so many persons would rush to what they ought to be aware would be certain destruction. On the other, the tone of absolute conviction in which the captain spoke, added to the high opinion she had formed of his seamanship and good judgment, inclined her to follow the advice.
“Quick!” cried the speaker from the boat, while other voices murmured impatiently.
She still hesitated, though her aunt pulled her arm, as if to go. Any further decision, however, was not permitted to her, for, the next instant, another voice from the boat cried, sharply—
“We can’t wait all night; push off, push off.”
Other voices, almost simultaneously, seconded this impatient cry, and the boat, on the instant, sunk away from the side of the ship, to be seen, the moment after, rising on a wave a good pistol-shot distant.
“Madmen!” muttered the captain between his teeth.
He had scarcely spoken, when a gigantic roller overtook the boat, still dimly visible as she floated broadside on, for in the haste and confusion of putting off all the men had not yet got out their oars, and consequently her head had not been pulled around.
A cry from the captain, and a stifled shriek from Kate burst forth, for the wave, rising like a moving hill, was now seen overtopping the boat for one brief moment, while a crowd of horror-struck countenances, whose looks Kate never forgot to her dying day, gazed up at it from below; and then, with a roar as of a hungry lion descending upon its prey, the enormous billow plunged headlong upon the miserable wretches. In that roar were mingled shrieks such as made the blood of the listeners curdle, the last wild cries, and the agonizing prayers of dying men. A whirlpool of foam was all that could be seen at first, after the boat had disappeared, out soon an oar floated to the surface, then a hat, then a struggling figure or two, and then faces upturned wildly in the death-struggle. But the next surge that swept over the spot carried them under again, or bore them out of sight into the gloom ahead.
A solemn silence prevailed for a while, broken at last by the captain, who said—
“God pity them!” And after a while, he added. “It is strange that men will be so foolhardy! But when presence of mind is lost, even the bravest become crazed.”
“Is there any hope even for us!” said Kate, after a pause. “Where are we?”
The captain looked down on her with admiration, at the firm tone in which she spoke.
“While there is life there is hope,” he answered. “If these old timbers last till morning, we’ll be able to see where we are; and, if near the coast, perhaps help may be had.”
“You are ignorant, then, exactly where we’ve struck?”
“Yes. My reckoning must have been false. I thought myself more than a day’s sail from the coast, and was thunderstruck when the lookout cried, in the middle of the night, that there were breakers ahead.”
“You were on deck?”
“I never go below, when near the end of a voyage, even if I think everything safe. As soon as he spoke, I leaped into the rigging, and there sure enough, I saw the white water flashing near at hand. I hauled the ship close on a wind at once, and began to crowd the canvass upon her.”
“It was the hurry and noise of making more sail that woke us.”
“It was of no use, however,” continued the captain, acknowledging the interruption by an affirmative nod. “Do all we could, we could just hold our own; and very soon the main-topsail, on which I had placed my chief reliance, split and went to leeward. She fell off instantly, striking with force enough, one would have thought, to shiver her into atoms. The masts went overboard, and you know the rest. Poor thing!” he added, mournfully, apostrophizing the vessel, “she’s carried me across the Atlantic, this is now the tenth time, but she’ll never do it again. Ah!” he continued, with natural emotion, “I little fancied we’d part so.”
“It was just as the sail went to ribbons,” said Kate, after a pause, for she respected the feelings of the master too much to proceed at once, “that I came on deck. You said that, when day broke, succor perhaps might be found. But we may be some distance from land; for, if I recollect—I was born in New Jersey—there are bars far out at sea.”
“You are right,” answered the captain. “The shore, too, is but a sand-bank, all along that coast; and one separated, by miles of shallow lagoons, from the fast land. If we’ve struck anywhere below Squam, we’ll not be likely to get aid, even if the high tide has carried us over the outer bars and landed us right on the shore. Few, or none of the beaches, if I’ve heard rightly, are inhabited. But let us hope we’re nigher the Hook, for, in that case, we must be close in, and there are farmhouses and fishing-cabins there, in sight of the sea.”
He did not add, that, even if this should prove to be the case, it was extremely problematical whether assistance could be rendered to them, while the waves ran so high. His secret opinion was, that the chance of escape was the very slightest, for he had no faith in the ship’s timbers holding together till the gale subsided, even if they did till morning. But, brave as Kate was, he shrank from acquainting one so young, and who had every prospect of a happy life before her, that a speedy death was almost inevitable. Besides, he noticed the extreme terror of her aunt, who could, indeed, scarcely hold to her support, so unnerved was she by the peril of their situation.
For, even during this conversation, both the speakers had occasionally been almost carried from their feet. Nearly every surge swept more or less over the ship. Twice the master had to interpose to save Kate from being prostrated; and still more frequently his services were required in behalf of her aunt. Occupying a position between the two women, he was fortunately able to afford instant aid to either. Meantime, the storm showed no symptoms of subsiding. The rain still fell in sheets, often stinging the bare hands of the victims like hail. The wind shrieked as if the sea had temporarily given up its wicked dead, who gibbered as they rushed past in the gloom.
The seas also seemed to run still higher. They came trooping on, fast and thick as hungry wolves; rushed by with a howl that fairly appalled the listeners; or leaped and snarled about the ship, as if eager for their prey, and grudging every moment of delay. Now and then a roller, more colossal than its predecessors, would sweep the whole length of the deck, making a breach completely over the vessel, whose every timber quivered as if she was about to part.
The darkness, all this time, was palpable. Often it seemed as if the low sky and the upheaved waves were about to commingle above the doomed ship; and always, in looking seaward, the boundary line between the two was lost in a chaos of obscurity scarcely a hundred feet off.
CHAPTER IV.
MORNING
Environ’d with a wilderness of sea;
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him. —Shakespeare.
It is, methinks, a morning full of fate!
It riseth slowly, as her sullen car,
Had all the weight of sleep and death hung at it!
She is not rosy-fingered, but swollen black. —Jonson.
“We shall be more sheltered,” continued the captain, “if we change our places. The waves, I see, don’t sweep the deck further aft on the starboard side. Shall we try to get there? I doubt if you could hold out till morning here. Certainly your aunt could not. She is already more dead than alive.”
Kate saw, at once, the wisdom of the suggestion. The ship, before going on the bar, had been running nearly parallel to the breakers, her head being slightly inclined seaward; but when the main-topsail went, she had whirled around, and struck bard on, heeling to larboard: consequently she now lay almost at right angles with the surf. Along the inclined deck the waves continually washed. The stern, however, protected the after portion, especially the higher side; for the waters, even when they made a clean breach over the ship, parted right and left around this sheltered spot.
“But can we get there?” said Kate, in a whisper, glancing at her aunt, who, through fear and wet, was now almost incapable of moving.
“I think I can manage her,” was the reply, in the same low tone, “if you can hold on here till I return.”
“We will go, then?”
Captain Powell did not lose a moment. Putting one stalwart arm around Mrs. Warren, and holding on by the other, he watched his opportunity, and started on his perilous enterprise. Kate gazed upon them breathlessly. Once she feared that they would lose their footing, for a large billow, rushing in over the lower side, swept the decks through their whole length; but the captain fortunately had seen it coming, and had hurriedly told his companion to hold on with all her strength. When, therefore, the waters had subsided, Kate saw that the captain was already advancing again across the slippery decks; and the moment after she had the satisfaction of beholding him safely deposit his companion in the sheltered nook, under the high stern.
Kate had never intended that the captain should return for her, because she knew how much her aunt’s terror would be increased by being left alone; but she had said nothing of this purpose, in order to spare remonstrances. As it would not do to wait, she set out at once.
When Captain Powell, therefore, having arranged a seat for Mrs. Warren, turned to go for Kate, he saw the brave girl already more than half way on her route. He shouted to her to stop till he could come up, especially as he saw a roller advancing; but she paid no heed to his words; and the next moment, as he had feared, she was hurried from sight under the huge wave as it swept the deck.
Striking the ship a little to the larboard of where he stood, this mass of dark water, that glistened like solid glass, went rushing up the sloping deck, in front of him, till it struck the bulwarks on the higher side, when dashing to pieces, a part flew crackling over in shattered fragments and clouds of spray, while the remaining portion, now churned to a milk-white color, rushed forward with irresistible force, carrying everything before it, till it precipitated itself in cataracts over the bow, or found escape by spouting from the hawse-holes, as if driven through them by a force-pump.
Under this enormous volume of water Kate disappeared entirely from sight. Captain Powell feared that she had not seen the approaching peril, and that, having no firm hold, she had been swept from her feet. Mrs. Warren, even in her half exhausted state, uttered a faint scream, and would have rushed forward, if she could have broken away. The captain looked eagerly to see Kate’s white garments amid the foam, as the wave swept onward. It seemed, meantime, as if the waters would never subside from the deck. What was in reality not more than a few seconds, appeared to him interminable.
At last, the sight so eagerly desired greeted his eyes; and Kate was seen comparatively unharmed. Pausing only to recover breath, and watch that no more such surges were coming in, she darted forward with the swiftness of a deer, and reached his side, panting so that she could not, for a moment, answer his eager inquiries.
“Did I see it rolling in?” she said, at last. “Yes, and took a firm hold; but I thought it would never pass over me; I seemed to be an age beneath the water.”
“It was fortunate it was no worse. I would not have taken one to a thousand pounds on your escape.”
“Oh! you don’t know what a sailor I can be,” answered Kate, cheerfully. “Thank you,” she said, as Captain Powell arranged a seat for her. “We shall get along nicely till morning now. How fortunate it’s not winter, isn’t it, aunt?”
Seating herself at these words, she put her arm around her aunt, and drawing the head of the latter to her shoulder, began affectionately stroking the water from her aged relative’s head. The poor creature could only answer this caress by tears, which flowed heavily down her cheeks, and by grateful looks.
“Are you cold, aunt? You shake your head. Yet you must be chilly, wet through as you are.”
“If you please, Miss Aylesford,” said the captain, “I think I can make my way into the cabin, and bring up some cloaks and shawls for you and your aunt.” And without waiting for a reply, he left them.
In a few minutes he returned. The warmth of the dry over garments, gradually revived Mrs. Warren. But even when she regained the command of words, she could only deplore their situation, and repeat, again and again, that she knew they never would reach the shore alive.
Kate, in the meanwhile, did all she could to reassure her aunt, though far from feeling confident herself. Much of the time, when they were silent, she spent in inward prayer. And surely, if ever petitions could avert evil, those of that pure-minded, brave girl ought.
Slowly the night wore on. To those lonely watchers for the morning, the hours appeared almost an eternity. A hundred times they turned their longing eyes seaward, in hopes to see the horizon lighting up. Sometimes they were deceived into thinking the dawn at hand, by a temporary lifting of the clouds in the east; but the darkness soon closed in as profound as ever; and the disappointment was then all the more poignant from that momentary gleam of hope.
Low and wild the clouds continued to drift past; but the rain had now slackened. On the other hand, the waves ran higher than ever, so that the captain’s fear that the ship would break up before morning, increased momentarily. Already the wreck was badly logged, as even Kate could see; and at any instant the hull might be expected to part into two pieces, under the blow of some new roller, as powerful as the one which had so nearly carried her off.
“She holds together bravely,” said the captain, when several hours had passed. “The good craft is as tough as old junk. I begin to feel now that she’ll not go to pieces till next tide, at any rate. Have you noticed, Miss Aylesford, that the water is falling?”
“I had not,” answered Kate. “How can you tell in the darkness and storm?”
“Leave an old salt alone for that,” was the reply, with something of that professional pride which even peril cannot entirely subdue. “You see, Miss, the gale’s as high as ever, and the waves run as wild, yet the decks are not swept as often, or as deep, as they were. We haven’t had a surge to reach us since we changed our places. The ship heels over also more, which she would naturally do as the tide went out.”
“I understand,” said Kate. “But look,” she cried, suddenly, “isn’t that morning? Surely, we cannot be mistaken this time.”
She pointed to the east as she spoke, where indeed no streak of light was to be seen, as on ordinary dawns, but where a thinning away of the heavy vapors was quite perceptible. Overhead all was yet blank, and the forms of the clouds were undistinguishable; but in the eastern seaboard, the sky had a fleecy look, as when mists begin to break away on a mountain side.
“You are right,” answered Captain Powell; “it is morning, God be praised.”
“Didn’t I tell you so, aunt?” said Kate, cheerfully, turning to her relative. “You hear what the captain says. It is really daybreak. We shall soon be able to see the shore, and no doubt be succored.”
Oh! the blessed dawn! It comes to the weary invalid, and gives new life to his veins. It comes to the watchers by the bed of death, and inspires them with momentary hope. But never comes it more welcome than to those, who, like our shipwrecked group, expect it as their only reliance. It made even Mrs. Warren feel strong, almost gay again.
Gradually the darkness vanished. It was not by any sudden influx of light, but by an imperceptible growth, which could only be noticed by the changes which long intervals produced. The black curtains of gloom, which had hung like a pall close around, slowly receded, the light diffusing itself, as it were, reluctantly and warily.
All eyes were turned in the direction of the land, long before it was possible to distinguish objects, at a distance, with certainty. At first, nothing but a waste of white waters, of billows racing after each other into a boundless space ahead, could be discerned. But finally, what seemed a long, low sand-bank, was made out, a short cable’s length off. It was a mere bar, elevated a few feet above the ocean, which, in many places, appeared to be actually making breaches over it. Not a house, nor even tree was distinguishable, on this barren and inhospitable shore; but here and there a few bushes, around which the drifting sand had collected, offered some slight opposition to the advancing waters.
For some time no one spoke. Kate’s heart swelled within her, and she could not frame words; once or twice she attempted it, and choked. She saw that the ship had struck on one of those uninhabited beaches, which the captain had described in the night; and that there was no longer any hope, for probably not a farmhouse, or human being existed within miles. As for Mrs. Warren, she gazed from the captain to her niece in speechless horror, wringing her hands, for she read in the face of each the despair that had succeeded to the momentary exhilaration produced by the dawn.
At last the master spoke. He had waited until the prospect brightened sufficiently landward to observe objects at some distance. But when he found that nothing was discernible, for miles on miles in that direction, through the drizzling mist—except salt marshes, against which even the partially protected waters inside the beach dashed fiercely, and over which the leaden-colored clouds swiftly drove,—he turned to Kate, and said, in a hoarse whisper.
“God help us, for there is none in man!”
Then, his thoughts reverting to his family, he ejaculated, “my poor wife!” and, completely unmanned, covered his face with his hands.
CHAPTER V.
THE COUNTRY TAVERN
The night drav’ on wi’ songs and clatter,
But aye the ale was growing better. —Burns.
We must now go back a few hours in our story, and introduce the reader to a different scene and personages.
The southern half of New Jersey is almost a dead level, covered with pine and oak forests, growing on a sandy soil. A slightly elevated ridge, however, runs in a southwesterly direction between Delaware Bay and the Atlantic, though much nearer the former than the latter, and divides the waters that flow westward from those that run toward the east.
One of the most considerable of the rivers, descending from this water-shed toward the Atlantic, empties into a wide, deep bay, almost shut in from the ocean by low beaches in its front. Notoriously the best anchoring ground between Sandy Hook and Cape May, it is a place of constant resort for coasters. At the time of which we write, it was, for similar reasons, a rendezvous for American privateers; and, in fact, their prizes usually discharged their cargoes on the neck of land where the river first swelled into the bay. Others, ascending higher up the stream, unloaded at the head of navigation, from which point the goods were carried across the country to Philadelphia by teams, the blockade of the Delaware, by the British fleet, preventing access often in a more direct way. It was not uncommon to find a dozen or two armed vessels lying in this river, waiting for a chance to sail.
Five and seventy years ago, when our story commences, this bay was even more shut out from the Atlantic than it is at present; for while now there is an inlet directly in its front, at that period the entrance was further to the south. Where, at present, vessels of considerable draught pass under full sail, was then a beach, elevated some distance above the water.
On an arm of this bay, or to speak more accurately, on an inconsiderable stream jutting into an arm of the bay, there stood, at the time of which we write, a small settlement, which, though its first beginnings dated back scarcely more than ten or fifteen years, already gave promise of becoming a thriving place. In the rude tavern of this incipient village, on the evening preceding the events detailed in the last chapter, quite a number of persons were gathered.
Most of the company appeared to belong to the various privateers then lying in the bay, and were merely boisterous tars; but there was one individual, whose bearing, not less than his dress, bespoke him of a higher rank. He was a man apparently about eight-and-twenty years of age, handsome in person, and with a face which, though by no means homely, was principally remarkable for the indications it gave of frankness, decision, a good heart, and a superior intellect. It was impossible, indeed, to look on that countenance, without feeling that, while its possessor was born to rule in public affairs, his destiny was to be equally fortunate in winning esteem and affection in private life. He wore the buff and blue of the American army. Sitting in one corner, where he was busily engaged in writing, he seemed to be entirely unconscious of what was going on around him, except when he occasionally intermitted the busy motion of his pen, and leaning his head on one hand, gazed with an abstracted smile on the sports of the crowd.
For, night having closed in, and the seamen being ashore on leave till morning, a black fiddler had been procured, and a dance begun. It is true there were none of the fairer sex present to participate in the amusement, but this, so far from checking the merriment, only gave it more freedom and boisterousness. Several countrymen, from small farms in the interior, who had come down with produce in the afternoon, and whom the exhilarating sounds of the violin had tempted to linger behind, when their sturdy dames were expecting them at home, joined heartily in the fun. Utterly heedless of the black looks awaiting them, when, repentant on the morrow, they should slink into the chimney corner, they laughed, and joked, and danced, and drank whiskey with Jack Tar, as if there had been, and never would be, a “gudewife” angry at neglect, and “nursing her wrath to keep it warm.”
As the hours wore on, and the wind outside began to rise, the mirth waxed louder and more contagious. Perhaps the landlord’s old whiskey contributed its mite also; but be this as it may, long before midnight the uproar was terrible. The floor shook under the feet of the performers; the rafters of the ceiling trembled with the shouts and laughter: and the shrill notes of the Cremona rose over all. The few tallow candles, which, from tin sconces, threw at best but a faint yellow radiance around, were almost obscured by the dust that rose from the floor and the smoke that ascended from innumerable pipes. The landlord, with a boy for an assistant, stood within the quadrant shaped bar, that occupied one corner of the apartment, looking out, from between the upright rails, with a well-pleased smile, for he knew that the louder the merriment, the greater would be his profits. Indeed, he had little leisure even to look, so frequent were the calls from his thirsty customers.
It may seem strange that the officer should select this apartment for the purpose of writing, or that he could abstract himself sufficiently to write at all in such a din. But, in truth, the inn afforded no place whither he might retreat. In the primitive fashion of that age and district, it had but one huge room, unless the loft overhead, where the guests slept in rows, could be dignified by that name. It was a matter of necessity for him, therefore, to turn this apartment, which alternately served for ball-room, bar-room, dining-saloon and town-hall, into a library. Fortunately, circumstances had early taught him that valuable discipline of mind, which enables the possessor to concentrate his thoughts on the subject before him, regardless of the confusion and noise around.
Toward midnight rain began to fall. Occasionally, in pauses of the merriment, the storm would be heard beating wildly against the window panes, while now and then, when the door was temporarily opened, the wind would dash the cold drops into the faces of those near the entrance. The trees, which overshadowed the house, moaned in the gale. Down the village street the tempest went howling wildly, till in the distance it sank to a low wail. The water in the neighboring bay, driven fiercely against the meadows, roared with an ever-increasing sound, as if threatening to inundate the low tongue of land whereon the hamlet was built.
But little cared the crowd of guests for the storm. A spirited contest was going on between two dancers, who, after having often been engaged in temporary trials of skill during the evening, had now apparently entered on a decisive struggle. One was a short, square-built sailor, in a pair of canvass trowsers thickly besprinkled with tar. He wore a tarpaulin on his head, and sported, in the fashion of the day, an immense queue behind, which, as he danced, worked up and down on his back like an iron pump-handle. His antagonist was a tall, lank countryman, with a body disproportionately small, legs that looked like a pair of stilts, and arms that, swinging in tune to his double-shuffle, resembled those of a windmill revolving without their sails. His yellow hair hung down lank all around his face. He had thrown off his coat, and now stood in his original shirtsleeves, with a deep waistcoat that reached almost to his knees. A pair of pinch-beck seals, attached to an enormous watch that was his especial pride, being almost the only one in his neighborhood, bobbed heavily up and down against his baggy breeches; while a few copper farthings jingled ostentatiously in his pockets, as he went vigorously through the figures of that time-honored dance, which is known to the initiated as a “Jersey Four.”
“Keep it up, Jack,” shouted the friends of the tar, and “Go it, Lively!” answered the backers of the other party; while the spectators laughed, clapped their hands, and kept time to the music; the fiddler nodded his head in sympathy with the motion; and the two rivals did their best to satisfy their patrons and win the laurels they coveted. The sailor danced away as stoutly as if worked by machinery, his feet, hands, limbs and portly paunch moving neither faster nor slower: it seemed for a while, as if he could continue to dance in the same impassive way forever, if necessary. The countryman, however, was less phlegmatic. Occasionally, the vigor of his saltatory action would fall perceptibly off, but becoming aware of this by some observation from the crowd, or through his own consciousness, he would suddenly give himself a jerk, as if his whole body had been moved, all at once, by pulling a string; and then away he would go, in and out, around and back, dancing to his partner as if life and death depended on his agility, his arms swinging, his legs going, and the perspiration rolling from his face.
“Jack’s got enough; he’s giving out,” cried one of the landsmen, triumphantly calling attention to the tar, after the countryman had, with another jerk, started off apparently as fresh as ever. “He’s blowing like a porpoise. Hoe it down right smart, Jim, and you have him. Hurrah for Jarsey!”
It was plain that the pursy seaman was beginning to be exhausted at last. He still danced away as imperturbably as ever; but there was a perceptible anxiety in his countenance; and at last, after fresh attempts, on the part of his comrades, to encourage him, had failed, he gave in, completely exhausted.
“You’re too much for me, shipmate,” he said, panting, good-humoredly addressing the victor. “I’ve seen the day, though,” he added, turning to the crowd, “when I could dance anybody down, but Portsmouth Peggy. But this chap, I own up, is my match. Give us your hand, my hearty, I bear no ill will.”
The countryman, on seeing his antagonist retire, had uttered a shrill cry of exultation, and cut a pigeon-wing, which latter he had just concluded, as the seaman tendered his hand. He clutched this between his horny palms, returning the good-fellowship with hearty accord.
“Let’s liquor,” he said, magnanimously, throwing his arms around his late adversary, and pulling him, nothing loath, towards the bar. “It’s my treat. Bring up your shipmates. I’m as dry as if my mouth was gunpowder. Hillo, Major,” he said, turning to the officer, “won’t yon drink? You’d rather not! No offence, I hope; for I meant none. Here’s to ‘Old Jarsey: small but spunky.’”
The toast was drank with all the honors, and then nothing would satisfy the exhilarated victor, but that the fiddler should also partake of a libation. Accordingly the sable performer was summoned to “stop that infernal caterwauling,” as his tuning up was elegantly termed by the speaker, and “walk up like a gentleman, to drink with the landlord and him.”
For a moment, after these words were spoken, and while the negro was grinning as the landlord handed out his glass, there was one of those moments of temporary silence which will happen even at the noisiest entertainments. Simultaneously there came a lull in the driving rain and howling wind without.
Suddenly, in this unexpected hush, there was heard what seemed a gun fired out at sea. The officer had just ceased writing, and was putting away his implements, when his attention was attracted by the sound. Few, if any others, heard it; and the merriment was beginning again, when he raised his hand and cried, in an authoritative voice, “Hark!”
His gesture, tone, and look, silenced every voice immediately. On the instant the sound was repeated. It was a low, sullen, stifled roar, apparently miles away.
“It’s a ship in distress,” said one of the group, whose dress bespoke him a waterman native to the region. “Hark: there it is again!”
“You must be mistaken, Mullen,” interposed the landlord, who saw that the words threw a damp over the company. “You couldn’t hear a gun so far off.”
“What else can it be, I’d like to know?” answered the man who had been called Mullen. “It’s a cannon, isn’t it, Major Gordon?”
“It’s a gun, certainly, and must be fired out at sea—a signal of distress. Recollect, the wind is favorable for bringing the sound this way. Listen, there it is again!”
There could be no mistaking it. As if to gratify the anxiety of the now excited group, the tempest had lulled almost entirely for the time, and the deep boom of a cannon, fired at intervals of about a minute, was heard distinctly. A sudden solemnity fell upon the listeners. The fiddler mechanically began replacing his instrument in its green bag; the landlord looked ruefully towards his assistant, as much as to say that he might close the bar, for there would be no more drinking that night; while the sailors, and indeed most of the company, crowded to the door, where they stood eagerly waiting for the reports, in spite of the rain that dripped from the roof just overhead, or drove occasionally into their faces when a gust of wind swept by.
“We must do something for them,” said Major Gordon, breaking the silence.
“It’s impossible to do anything tonight,” answered Mullen. “But I’ll go off with you at dawn, as far as the beach, anyhow. I’ve a good boat, and we can easily get volunteers. You’ll go, Newell, and you, Muncy,” he said, turning to various young men, all acquaintances, whom he saw standing around, “and you, and you, and you.”
“We’ll follow the Major, and yon,” said the one he had called Newell, “wherever you may lead.” “Thanks, my lads,” answered the officer, “and now to rest, so that we may be all the fresher in the morning, when God grant that we may not be too late.”
The suggestion was followed. In a few minutes, those who had been so fortunate as to obtain beds, had retired to the loft above; while the remainder stretched themselves indiscriminately on the floor, and were soon buried in profound repose.
By this time the tempest had increased again, so that the signal guns could not be distinguished. But Major Gordon, who had never heard similar sounds before, was long haunted in his sleep by the report of cannon booming solemnly across the night.
CHAPTER VI.
MAJOR GORDON
The morning comes, but brings no sun.
The sky with clouds is overrun. —T. Buchanan Read.
A piteous fearful sight,
A noble vessel laboring with the storm. —Maturin.
It is time that we should say something of the young officer, who, as the reader has suspected, is destined to play no inconsiderable part in our story.
Major Gordon had been left an orphan at an early age, with but a small competence, most of which had been exhausted on his education, so that, on his attaining his majority, his whole property consisted of little more than sufficient to purchase a library and support himself for a couple of years. By assiduity in his profession, however, which was that of the law, assisted by a natural gift of eloquence, he rapidly rose to ease and distinction; and was fast taking rank, indeed, among the eminent advocates of whom Philadelphia boasted then, as now, when the war of Independence broke out. Like most other generous and heroic spirits, he threw himself with ardor into the patriotic cause. Abandoning his practice and the tempting offers it held out, he joined the troops raised by the colony of Pennsylvania, in which he speedily attained the rank of Major. Subsequently he had been attached to the staff of General Wayne, and afterwards had been employed on several delicate missions, where judgment and discretion were required as well as courage. It was one of these latter tasks which had brought him to the coast now. A cargo of powder was expected to be landed in the river, and as it was much wanted at camp, he had been despatched to receive and forward it to head-quarters.
There were as yet no signs of daybreak, when Major Gordon, who had slept but indifferently, awoke and looked at his watch. By the dim light of the solitary candle, he saw that morning would dawn by the time they could get their craft ready; and accordingly, picking his way between the rows of beds, he descended into the lower apartment, and proceeded to arouse Mullen. The latter individual was awoke with some difficulty.
“Morning, is it, Major?” he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Why the night’s as black as a wolf’s mouth yet. Look at the window and see for yourself.”
“But it will be daylight before we are ready. I’d trust my watch sooner than my eyes, especially on a morning like this.”
“Well, I’m your man,” said Mullen, who, being now thoroughly awake, sprang up with alacrity and proceeded to arouse his comrades, one by one; carefully avoiding, however, disturbing the other sleepers, who all slumbered heavily after their debauch.
In a short while the little band came forth and took their way, by the light of a lantern, to the spot where Mullen’s craft was moored.
“What a storm it has been,” said Major Gordon. “I heard the rain beating, the wind roaring, and the waters dashing, all through the night. Sometimes I also fancied I distinguished signal-guns; but that, I began to fear, was only a dream, since there’s no sign of them now.”
“It’s sartain none have been fired since we came out,” answered Mullen, “for we’d have been sure to hear ‘em. The wind has lulled, but the gale’s not over. There’ll maybe not much more rain fall; but I shouldn’t be surprised to hear it blow great guns the better part of the day.”
“I suppose the schooner would not be apt to come in, on such a morning,” said Major Gordon, alluding to the vessel whose arrival he was expecting.
“No, she’d keep an offing, while she has it. Her skipper is a good sailor, and he’ll turn up, right and tight, though not till the gale’s over.”
“Unless he’s been captured,” said the Major. “He should have been here two days ago, and his delay makes me think, sometimes, that he has been taken by the British.”
“Give yourself no consarn on that p’int, Major,” retorted Mullen. “The schooner’s a clipper of a craft; none of your scows, made by the cord and cut off in lengths to suit customers; but a ra’al beauty, sharp as a nor’wester on a winter mornin’, and that can go into the wind’s eye like a duck. The skipper, too, knows every inlet on the coast, and all the shallows, so that if a cruiser was to follow him, he’d lead the fellow aground in no time, and then giving him a shot, to make fun of him like, set everything drawing on the opposite tack, and leave him to get off as he could.”
By this time they had reached their craft, which was a half-decked boat, with a single mast, of a description still frequent in those waters. There was some delay in getting her ready for a start, and still more in tracking her out of the small creek where she lay; but at last the adventurers succeeded in gaining open water just as the gloom of night was giving way to the dim, stormy day. The high wind compelled the crew to close-reef their mainsail, and even with this mere shred of canvass, the boat staggered along like a drunken man, laboring heavily in the rough, cross sea.
“Heaven grant we may be in time,” said Major Gordon. “But this long silence of the alarm guns, and this fierce wind, are ominous of disaster.”
“It’s four chances to one that we’re goin’ on a fool’s errand,” answered Mullen. “First, the ship’s probably gone down before this; and second, if she hasn’t, her people are most likely drowned; for, if neither of these had happened, we would have heard her guns off and on through the night. Third, if she’s struck, it’s probably on the outer bar, a mile from shore, where nobody can get at her. Fourth, if even she’s in the very breakers, she’ll probably go to pieces before we can do anything to help ‘em.”
“Surely,” said Major Gordon, “if she’s in the breakers, we can save her people in some way.”
“There’s small chance of that,” was the answer. “You don’t know this coast like I do, Major, or you’d hardly have insisted on coming out. No boat could live a moment in the surf that must now be beating on the shore. I’ve seen many a poor fellow hang in the shrouds, in my time, for a matter of twenty-four hours or so; and that, too, with a dozen or more looking at him all the while—yet he’s been forced to drop into the sea at last, because no one could get to him. It was only last January, that one of King George’s transports struck and bilged in a snow-storm, on the beach right ahead of us; and not a soul was saved. The coast was strewed, for miles, with dead bodies, some of officers in uniforms, and others of common soldiers; and there were women, too, among ‘em. I wasn’t on the beach myself, but from all accounts it was dreadful to see. Once, howsomever, I knew three men to cling to the cross-trees of a sloop, which had sunk in some twelve feet water, and there they held fast, like dying men will, for two days and a night. I could hear their cries all the while, for the wind blew strong on shore; but they got weaker and faint-like, ‘specially towards the first night; and on the second morning there was only one could be heard.”
He paused, moved by the mere recollection, and then proceeded.
“His voice, too, as the day went on, got weaker, till about an hour before sunset, and when at last the surf was beginning to go down, he dropped quietly into the sea. The others had died hours before. So I doubt if we can do any good, even if we find a wreck. It’s a bad thing, too, Major, to see poor creatures in mortal agony, yet not be able to help ‘em. You’ll wish you’d never come. But as you say go, go we do.”
“Thank you,” answered Major Gordon, with a husky voice, deeply moved by the sad narratives of the speaker, and almost convinced that he was only conducting them to the threshold of another drama of the same character. “But I could never again rest in my bed, if I didn’t make an effort, at least, to see if there’s a wreck, and try what can be done. I should be always hearing the boom of the alarm gun in my dreams.”
The rain had now ceased, but a drizzling mist had set in, through whose folds the dreary landscape looked more desolate than ever. The slate-colored clouds, flying just overhead, drifted rapidly in from the sea, and sweeping past, like the wings of gigantic birds seen in the dusk of night, disappeared in the vague haze inland. As the boat beat across the bay, the water flew crackling over her forecastle, often even wetting Major Gordon and Mullen in the stern; while the parted waves, bubbling and hissing by, whirled off behind in creamy eddies.
After awhile the southern edge of the open water was attained, when the craft entered a labyrinth of comparatively narrow channels, winding between salt-marshes. The black, saline mud of these marshes emitted a pungent smell, as the waves washed along the banks; while the long grass, which thickly covered their surface, whistled or rattled in the gale. Occasionally, a gull was seen, screaming aloft, in spite of the storm, now swept swiftly down the wind, and now slowly battling his way up against the tempest.
“There it is,” suddenly cried one of the crew, and, as he spoke, he pointed across the beach, along whose inner side the boat was now coasting.
They were opposite where, at its narrowest part, sea. and bay approached within a few hundred yards of each other; and, following the direction of the man’s finger, Major Gordon saw a large ship, lying some distance from the shore, with her masts gone and apparently deserted.
She lay, careened towards the south, at a right angle to the coast, so that nearly every wave swept her for the entire length of her decks. At first, as we have said, she seemed deserted. But, looking more closely, Major Gordon discovered, under the lee of her weather side, and sheltered by the high stern, two female figures, attended by a solitary companion of the other sex.
“Luff, luff,” he cried to Mullen, who was steering. “She’ll lay close alongside the bank, won’t she? Let go everything with a run.”
In a moment the craft rasped against the steep mud bank, and in another Major Gordon had leaped ashore, and was moving towards the surf, leaving the others to follow more at leisure.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ABORTIVE ATTEMPT
Shout to them in the pauses of the storm,
And tell them there is hope.
* * * It is too late;
No help of human hand can reach them there;
One hour will hush their cries. —Maturin.
All sat mute,
Pondering the danger with deep thoughts. —Milton.
At this sight, the three persons on the wreck, who, when first seen, had seemed as inanimate as stone, started up, and while the females clasped their hands, their companion began to wave a handkerchief as a signal.
In a lull of the gale, Major Gordon shouted to them, making an impromptu speaking-trumpet of his hands. Only a faint sound, however, came back, proving that the strangers had replied; its purport was undistinguishable.
“They can’t hear a word you say,” remarked Mullen, coming up. “But they saw you were speaking to them, by your actions. If we can’t hear them,” he pertinently added, “with the wind towards us, how can they hear us?”
“Hark!” answered Major Gordon, “I thought I made out a word or two then. Didn’t he say that all on board were lost except themselves?”
“Likely enough. But see, he’s got a speaking-trumpet.”
As he spoke, Captain Powell raised that instrument to his mouth, and shouted, in broken intervals, that all on board had been lost except three; that they had no boats, nor anybody to man them if they had; and that the ladies could never reach shore alive, if they jumped overboard, even lashed to a spar. He concluded by saying—
“Haven’t you a whale-boat?”
Again Major Gordon attempted to make himself audible. But though he shouted again and again, and with a Stentor’s voice, it was evident that his accents were not heard on the wreck. Two or three of the others made a similar essay, but with no better success.
“We can’t hear a word,” shouted Captain Powell. “The ship won’t hold together much longer. Get a whale-boat, for the love of God, or we are lost.”
“Alas!” said Major Gordon, turning to Mullen, “there’s no such thing within ten miles—is there?” “No,” interrupted Mullen, shaking his head.
“But something must be done. I think a strong man might swim out to the wreck with a rope.” “Swim out with a rope!”
“Yes!”
“What good would that do?”
“If,” replied the Major, “we had a line out to the ship, it might be used to draw a cable from her ashore; and if there was a cable hauled taut, I’m sure I could rig a sort of sliding hammock, by which to land the ladies: for the hammock could be made to travel to and fro by lines attached to either end.”
Mullen regarded the speaker in mute admiration for a full minute before he spoke.
“I always said,” he replied, at last, “that it was everything to be a scollard. Now I might have puzzled over this matter for a week, yet never have thought of such a way as that. It would do, sartainly, if we only had the line out.”
“If I had a mortar here, and tools, I could fix it so as to throw a line over the wreck at once.”
“A musket wouldn’t do,” said Mullen, musingly; “even one with so big a bore as a ‘Queen Anne.’ I’ve a capital one in the boat.”
“It couldn’t throw a line strong enough. The strain of the cable, when the latter came to be dragged through the water, would snap it immediately.”
“More’s the pity,” answered Mullen, as if reluctantly abandoning a scheme, which he would have liked to have seen tried for its novelty, at least, “for I see we’ll have to give the thing up.”
“Give it up!” cried the Major.
“Yes!”
“Can’t a man swim off, as I proposed?”
Mullen shook his head.
“I’m not so sure,” stoutly said Major Gordon.
“It would be tempting death.”
The men had been eagerly listening to this conversation. The scheme of Major Gordon, to judge by the expression of their faces, had filled them with not less admiration than it had Mullen. The Major now turned to each countenance in succession, to see if any listener thought more favorably than Mullen of the feasibility of swimming off with a line. But the scrutiny was in vain.
“Think of the women,” he said, addressing the group, and hoping yet to move some one. “Have you no wives or daughters? Have none of you mothers? There is one lady there whose gray hairs ought to remind you of a mother. Would you stand idly here if your own was in such extremity? Have none of you sisters? That young, delicate-looking creature there should appeal to your hearts.”