The Pilot (4 page)

"Ay, Tom," returned his officer, walking to the edge of the cliffs, and
throwing a seaman's glance at the gloomy ocean, "'tis a threatening
night indeed; but this pilot must be had—and—"

"Is that the man?" interrupted the cockswain, pointing toward a man who
was standing not far from them, an attentive observer of their
proceedings, the same time that he was narrowly watched himself by the
young midshipman. "God send that he knows his trade well, for the bottom
of a ship will need eyes to find its road out of this wild anchorage."

"That must indeed be the man!" exclaimed Barnstable, at once recalled to
his duty. He then held a short dialogue with his female companion, whom
he left concealed by the hedge, and proceeded to address the stranger.
When near enough to be heard, the commander of the schooner demanded:

"What water have you in this bay?"

The stranger, who seemed to expect this question, answered without the
least hesitation:

"Enough to take all out in safety, who have entered with confidence."

"You are the man I seek," cried Barnstable; "are you ready to go off?"

"Both ready and willing," returned the pilot, "and there is need of
haste. I would give the best hundred guineas that ever were coined for
two hours more use of that sun which has left us, or for even the time
of this fading twilight."

"Think you our situation so bad?" said the lieutenant. "Follow this
gentleman to the boat then; I will join you by the time you can descend
the cliffs. I believe I can prevail on another hand to go off with us."

"Time is more precious now than any number of hands," said the pilot,
throwing a glance of impatience from under his lowering brows, "and the
consequences of delay must be visited on those who occasion it."

"And, sir, I will meet the consequences with those who have a right to
inquire into my conduct," said Barnstable, haughtily.

With this warning and retort they separated; the young officer retracing
his steps impatiently toward his mistress, muttering his indignation in
suppressed execrations, and the pilot, drawing the leathern belt of his
pea-jacket mechanically around his body, as he followed the midshipman
and cockswain to their boat, in moody silence.

Barnstable found the disguised female who had announced herself as
Katherine Plowden, awaiting his return, with intense anxiety depicted on
every feature of her intelligent countenance. As he felt all the
responsibility of his situation, notwithstanding his cool reply to the
pilot, the young man hastily drew an arm of the apparent boy, forgetful
of her disguise, through his own, and led her forward.

"Come, Katherine," he said, "the time urges to be prompt."

"What pressing necessity is there for immediate departure?" she
inquired, checking his movements by withdrawing herself from his side.

"You heard the ominous prognostic of my cockswain on the weather, and I
am forced to add my own testimony to his opinion. 'Tis a crazy night
that threatens us, though I cannot repent of coming into the bay, since
it has led to this interview."

"God forbid that we should either of us have cause to repent of it,"
said Katherine, the paleness of anxiety chasing away the rich bloom that
had mantled the animated face of the brunette. "But you have the paper—
follow its directions, and come to our rescue; you will find us willing
captives, if Griffith and yourself are our conquerors."

"What mean you, Katherine!" exclaimed her lover; "you at least are now
in safety—'twould be madness to tempt your fate again. My vessel can
and shall protect you, until your cousin is redeemed; and then,
remember, I have a claim on you for life."

"And how would you dispose of me in the interval?" said the young
maiden, retreating slowly from his advances.

"In the Ariel—by heaven, you shall be her commander; I will bear that
rank only in name."

"I thank you, thank you, Barnstable, but distrust my abilities to fill
such a station," she said, laughing, though the color that again crossed
her youthful features was like the glow of a summer's sunset, and even
her mirthful eyes seemed to reflect their tints. "Do not mistake me,
saucy one. If I have done more than my sex will warrant, remember it was
through a holy motive, and if I have more than a woman's enterprise, it
must be—"

"To lift you above the weakness of your sex," he cried, "and to enable
you to show your noble confidence in me."

"To fit me for, and to keep me worthy of being one day your wife." As
she uttered these words she turned and disappeared, with a rapidity that
eluded his attempts to detain her, behind an angle of the hedge, that
was near them. For a moment, Barnstable remained motionless, through
surprise, and when he sprang forward in pursuit, he was able only to
catch a glimpse of her light form, in the gloom of the evening, as she
again vanished in a little thicket at some distance.

Barnstable was about to pursue, when the air lighted with a sudden
flash, and the bellowing report of a cannon rolled along the cliffs, and
was echoed among the hills far inland.

"Ay, grumble away, old dotard!" the disappointed young sailor muttered
to himself, while he reluctantly obeyed the signal; "you are in as great
a hurry to get out of your danger as you were to run into it."

The quick reports of three muskets from the barge beneath where he stood
urged him to quicken his pace, and as he threw himself carelessly down
the rugged and dangerous passes of the cliffs, his experienced eye
beheld the well-known lights displayed from the frigate, which commanded
"the recall of all her boats."

In such a time as this it is not meet
That every nice offence should bear its comment.
Shakespeare

The cliffs threw their dark shadows wide on the waters, and the gloom
of the evening had so far advanced as to conceal the discontent that
brooded over the ordinarily open brow of Barnstable as he sprang from
the rocks into the boat, and took his seat by the side of the silent
pilot. "Shove off," cried the lieutenant, in tones that his men knew
must be obeyed. "A seaman's curse light on the folly that exposes planks
and lives to such navigation; and all to burn some old timberman, or
catch a Norway trader asleep! give way, men, give way!"

Notwithstanding the heavy and dangerous surf that was beginning to
tumble in upon the rocks in an alarming manner, the startled seamen
succeeded in urging their light boat over the waves, and in a few
seconds were without the point where danger was most to be apprehended.
Barnstable had seemingly disregarded the breakers as they passed, but
sat sternly eyeing the foam that rolled by them in successive surges,
until the boat rose regularly on the long seas, when he turned his looks
around the bay in quest of the barge.

"Ay, Griffith has tired of rocking in his pillowed cradle," he muttered,
"and will give us a pull to the frigate, when we ought to be getting the
schooner out of this hard-featured landscape. This is just such a place
as one of your sighing lovers would doat on; a little land, a little
water, and a good deal of rock. Damme, long Tom, but I am more than half
of your mind, that an island now and then is all the terra firma that a
seaman needs."

"It's reason and philosophy, sir," returned the sedate cockswain; "and
what land there is, should always be a soft mud, or a sandy ooze, in
order that an anchor might hold, and to make soundings sartin. I have
lost many a deep-sea, besides hand leads by the dozen, on rocky bottoms;
but give me the roadstead where a lead comes up light and an anchor
heavy. There's a boat pulling athwart our forefoot, Captain Barnstable;
shall I run her aboard or give her a berth, sir?"

"'Tis the barge!" cried the officer; "Ned has not deserted me, after
all!"

A loud hail from the approaching boat confirmed this opinion, and in a
few seconds the barge and whale-boat were again rolling by each other's
side. Griffith was no longer reclining on the cushions of his seats, but
spoke earnestly, and with a slight tone of reproach in his manner.

"Why have you wasted so many precious moments, when every minute
threatens us with new dangers? I was obeying the signal, but I heard
your oars, and pulled back to take out the pilot. Have you been
successful?"

"There he is; and if he finds his way out, through the shoals, he will
earn a right to his name. This bids fair to be a night when a man will
need a spy-glass to find the moon. But when you hear what I have seen on
those rascally cliffs, you will be more ready to excuse my delay, Mr.
Griffith."

"You have seen the true man, I trust, or we incur this hazard to an evil
purpose."

"Ay, I have seen him that is a true man, and him that is not," replied
Barnstable, bitterly; "you have the boy with you, Griffith—ask him what
his young eyes have seen."

"Shall I!" cried the young midshipman, laughing; "then I have seen a
little clipper, in disguise, out sail an old man-of-war's man in a hard
chase, and I have seen a straggling rover in long-togs as much like my
cousin—"

"Peace, gabbler!" exclaimed Barnstable in a voice of thunder; "would you
detain the boats with your silly nonsense at a time like this? Away into
the barge, sir, and if you find him willing to hear, tell Mr. Griffith
what your foolish conjectures amount to, at your leisure."

The boy stepped lightly from the whale-boat to the barge, whither the
pilot had already preceded him, and, as he sunk, with a mortified air,
by the side of Griffith, he said, in a low voice:

"And that won't be long, I know, if Mr. Griffith thinks and feels on the
coast of England as he thought and felt at home."

A silent pressure of his hand was the only reply that the young
lieutenant made, before he paid the parting compliments to Barnstable,
and directed his men to pull for their ship.

The boats were separating, and the plash of the oars was already heard,
when the voice of the pilot was for the first time raised in earnest.

"Hold!" he cried; "hold water, I bid ye!"

The men ceased their efforts at the commanding tones of his voice, and
turning toward the whale-boat, he continued:

"You will get your schooner under way immediately, Captain Barnstable,
and sweep into the offing with as little delay as possible. Keep the
ship well open from the northern headland, and as you pass us, come
within hail."

"This is a clean chart and plain sailing, Mr. Pilot," returned
Barnstable; "but who is to justify my moving without orders, to Captain
Munson? I have it in black and white, to run the Ariel into this
feather-bed sort of a place, and I must at least have it by signal or
word of mouth from my betters, before my cutwater curls another wave.
The road may be as hard to find going out as it was coming in—and then
I had daylight as well as your written directions to steer by."

"Would you lie there to perish on such a night?" said the pilot,
sternly. "Two hours hence, this heavy swell will break where your vessel
now rides so quietly."

"There we think exactly alike; but if I get drowned now, I am drowned
according to orders; whereas, if I knock a plank out of the schooner's
bottom, by following your directions, 'twill be a hole to let in mutiny,
as well as sea-water. How do I know but the old man wants another pilot
or two."

"That's philosophy," muttered the cockswain of the whale-boat, in a
voice that was audible: "but it's a hard strain on a man's conscience to
hold on in such an anchorage!"

"Then keep your anchor down, and follow it to the bottom," said the
pilot to himself; "it's worse to contend with a fool than a gale of
wind; but if—"

"No, no, sir—no fool neither," interrupted Griffith. "Barnstable does
not deserve that epithet, though he certainly carries the point of duty
to the extreme. Heave up at once, Mr. Barnstable, and get out of this
bay as fast as possible."

"Ah! you don't give the order with half the pleasure with which I shall
execute it; pull away, boys—the Ariel shall never lay her bones in such
a hard bed, if I can help it."

As the commander of the schooner uttered these words with a cheering
voice, his men spontaneously shouted, and the whale-boat darted away
from her companion, and was soon lost in the gloomy shadows cast from
the cliffs.

In the mean time, the oarsmen of the barge were not idle, but by
strenuous efforts they forced the heavy boat rapidly through the water,
and in a few minutes she ran alongside of the frigate. During this
period the pilot, in a voice which had lost all the startling fierceness
and authority it had manifested in his short dialogue with Barnstable,
requested Griffith to repeat to him, slowly, the names of the officers
that belonged to his ship. When the young lieutenant had complied with
this request, he observed to his companion:

"All good men and true, Mr. Pilot; and though this business in which you
are just now engaged may be hazardous to an Englishman, there are none
with us who will betray you. We need your services, and as we expect
good faith from you, so shall we offer it to you in exchange."

"And how know you that I need its exercise?" asked the pilot, in a
manner that denoted a cold indifference to the subject.

"Why, though you talk pretty good English, for a native," returned
Griffith, "yet you have a small bur-r-r in your mouth that would prick
the tongue of a man who was born on the other side of the Atlantic."

"It is but of little moment where a man is born, or how he speaks,"
returned the pilot, coldly, "so that he does his duty bravely and in
good faith."

It was perhaps fortunate for the harmony of this dialogue, that the
gloom, which had now increased to positive darkness, completely
concealed the look of scornful irony that crossed the handsome features
of the young sailor, as he replied: "True, true, so that he does his
duty, as you say, in good faith. But, as Barnstable observed, you must
know your road well to travel among these shoals on such a night as
this. Know you what water we draw?"