The Pilot (49 page)

"You see, sir," said Barnstable, after grasping the hands of Griffith
and Manual in a warm and cordial pressure, "that all my plans have
succeeded. Your sleeping guard are closely watched in their barracks by
one party; our officers are released and your sentinels cut off by
another; while, with a third, I hold the centre of the abbey, and am,
substantially, in possession of your own person. In consideration,
therefore, of what is due to humanity, and to the presence of these
ladies, let there be no struggle! I shall impose no difficult terms, nor
any long imprisonment."

The recruiting officer manifested a composure throughout the whole scene
that would have excited some uneasiness in his invaders, had there been
opportunity for minute observation; but his countenance now gradually
assumed an appearance of anxiety, and his head was frequently turned, as
if listening for further and more important interruptions. He answered,
however, to this appeal with his ordinary deliberation.

"You speak of conquests, sir, before they are achieved. My venerable
host and myself are not so defenceless as you may chose to imagine."
While speaking he threw aside the cloth of a side table, from beneath
which the colonel and himself were instantly armed with a brace of
pistols each. "Here are the death-warrants of four of your party, and
these brave fellows at my back can account for two more. I believe, my
transatlantic warrior, that we are now something in the condition of
Cortes and the Mexicans, when the former overran part of your continent
—I being Cortes, armed with artificial thunder and lightning, and you
the Indians, with nothing but your pikes and sling, and such other
antediluvian inventions. Shipwrecks and seawater are fatal dampers of
gunpowder!"

"That we are unprovided with firearms, I will not deny," said
Barnstable; "but we are men who are used, from infancy, to depend on our
good right arms for life and safety, and we know how to use them, though
we should even grapple with death! As for the trifles in your hands,
gentlemen, you are not to suppose that men who are trained to look in at
one end of a thirty-two pounder, loaded with grape, while the match is
put to the other, will so much as wink at their report, though you fired
them by fifties. What say you, boys, is a pistol a weapon to repel
boarders?"

The discordant and disdainful laughs that burst from the restrained
seamen were a sufficient pledge of their indifference to so trifling a
danger. Borroughcliffe noted their hardened boldness, and taking the
supper bell, which was lying near him, he rang it, for a minute, with
great violence. The heavy tread of trained footsteps soon followed this
extraordinary summons; and presently the several doors of the apartment
were opened, and filled with armed soldiers, wearing the livery of the
English crown.

"If you hold these smaller weapons in such vast contempt," said the
recruiting officer, when he perceived that his men had possessed
themselves of all the avenues, "it is in my power to try the virtue of
some more formidable. After this exhibition of my strength, gentlemen, I
presume you cannot hesitate to submit as prisoners of war."

The seamen had been formed in something like military array, by the
assiduity of Manual, during the preceding dialogue; and as the different
doors had discovered fresh accessions to the strength of the enemy, the
marine industriously offered new fronts, until the small party was
completely arranged in a hollow square, that might have proved
formidable in a charge, bristled as it was with the deadly pikes of the
Ariel.

"Here has been some mistake," said Griffith, after glancing his eye at
the formidable array of the soldiers; "I take precedence of Mr.
Barnstable, and I shall propose to you, Captain Borroughcliffe, terms
that may remove this scene of strife from the dwelling of Colonel
Howard."

"The dwelling of Colonel Howard," cried the veteran, "is the dwelling of
his king, or of the meanest servant of the crown! so, Borroughcliffe,
spare not the traitors on my behalf; accept no other terms than such
unconditional submission as is meet to exact from the rebellious
subjects of the anointed of the Lord."

While Griffith spoke, Barnstable folded his arms, in affected composure,
and glanced his eyes expressively at the shivering Katherine, who, with
her companions, still continued agitated spectators of all that passed,
chained to the spot by their apprehensions; but to this formidable
denunciation of the master of the abbey he deemed proper to reply:

"Now, by every hope I have of sleeping again on salt water, old
gentleman if it were not for the presence of these three trembling
females, I should feel tempted to dispute, at once, the title of his
majesty. You may make such a covenant as you will with Mr. Griffith, but
if it contain one syllable about submission to your king, or of any
other allegiance than that which I owe to the Continental Congress, and
the State of Massachusetts, you may as well consider the terms violated
at once; for not an article of such an agreement will I consider as
binding on me, or on any that shall choose to follow me as leader."

"Here are but two leaders, Mr. Barnstable," interrupted the haughty
Griffith; "the one of the enemy, and the other of the arms of America.
Captain Borroughclffe, to you, as the former, I address myself. The
great objects of the contest which now unhappily divides England from
her ancient colonies can be, in no degree, affected by the events of
this night; while, on the other hand, by a rigid adherence to military
notions, much private, evil and deep domestic calamity must follow any
struggle in such a place. We have but to speak, sir, and these rude men,
who already stand impatiently handling their instruments of death, will
aim them at each other's lives; and who can say that he shall be able to
stay their hands when and where he will. I know you to be a soldier, and
that you are not yet to learn how much easier it is to stimulate to
blood than to glut vengeance."

Borroughcliffe, unused to the admission of violent emotions, and secure
in the superiority of his own party, both in numbers and equipments,
heard him with the coolest composure to the end, and then answered in
his customary manner:

"I honor your logic, sir. Your premises are indisputable, and the
conclusion most obvious. Commit then these worthy tars to the good
keeping of honest Drill, who will see their famished natures revived by
divers eatables and a due proportion of suitable fluids; while we can
discuss the manner in which you are to return to the colonies, around a
bottle of liquor, which my friend Manual there assures me has come from
the sunny side of the island of Madeira, to be drunk in a bleak corner
of that of Britain. By my palate! but the rascals brighten at the
thought. They know by instinct, sir, that a shipwrecked mariner is a
fitter companion to a ration of beef and a pot of porter than to such
unsightly things as bayonets and boarding-pikes!"

"Trifle, not unseasonably!" exclaimed the impatient young sailor. "You
have the odds in numbers, but whether it will avail you much in a deadly
struggle of hand to hand, is a question you must put to your prudence:
we stand not here to ask terms, but to grant them. You must be brief,
sir; for the time is wasting while we delay."

"I have offered to you the means of obtaining, in perfection, the
enjoyment of the three most ancient of the numerous family of the arts—
eating, drinking, and sleeping! What more do you require?"

"That you order these men, who fill the pass to the outer door, to fall
back and give us room. I would take, in peace, these armed men from
before the eyes of those who are unused to such sights. Before you
oppose this demand, think how easily these hardy fellows could make a
way for themselves, against your divided force."

"Your companion, the experienced Captain Manual, will tell you that such
a manoeuvre would be very unmilitary with a superior body in your rear!"

"I have not leisure, sir, for this folly," cried the indignant Griffith.
"Do you refuse us an unmolested retreat from the abbey?"

"I do."

Griffith turned with a look of extreme emotion to the ladies, and
beckoned to them to retire, unable to give utterance to his wishes in
words. After a moment of deep silence, however, he once more addressed
Borroughcliffe in the tones of conciliation.

"If Manual and myself will return to our prisons, and submit to the will
of your government," he said, "can the rest of the party return to the
frigate unmolested?"

"They cannot," replied the soldier, who, perceiving that the crisis
approached, was gradually losing his artificial deportment in the
interest of the moment. "You, and all others who willingly invade the
peace of these realms, must abide the issue!"

"Then God protect the innocent and defend the right!"

"Amen."

"Give way, villains!" cried Griffith, facing the party that held the
outer door; "give way, or you shall be riddled with our pikes!"

"Show them your muzzles, men!" shouted Borroughcliffe, "but pull no
trigger till they advance."

There was an instant of bustle and preparation, in which the rattling of
firearms blended with the suppressed execrations and threats of the
intended combatants; and Cecilia and Katherine had both covered their
faces to veil the horrid sight that was momentarily expected, when Alice
Dunscombe advanced, boldly, between the points of the threatening
weapons, and spoke in a voice that stayed the hands that were already
uplifted.

"Hear me, men! if men ye be, and not demons, thirsting for each other's
blood; though ye walk abroad in the semblance of Him who died that ye
might be elevated to the rank of angels! Call ye this war? Is this the
glory that is made to warm the hearts of even silly and confiding women?
Is the peace of families to be destroyed to gratify your wicked lust for
conquest, and is life to be taken in vain, in order that ye may boast of
the foul deed in your wicked revels? Fall back, then, ye British
soldiers! if ye be worthy of that name, and give passage to a woman; and
remember that the first shot that is fired will be buried in her bosom!"

The men, thus enjoined, shrank before her commanding mien, and a way was
made for her exit through that very door which Griffith had, in vain,
solicited might be cleared for himself and party. But Alice, instead of
advancing, appeared to have suddenly lost the use of those faculties
which had already effected so much. Her figure seemed rooted to the spot
where she had spoken, and her eyes were fixed in a Settled gaze, as if
dwelling on some horrid object, While she yet stood in this attitude of
unconscious helplessness, the doorway became again darkened, and the
figure of the Pilot was seen on its threshold, clad, as usual, in the
humble vestments of his profession, but heavily armed with the weapons
of naval war. For an instant, he stood a silent spectator of the scene;
and then advanced calmly, but with searching eyes, into the centre of
the apartment.

"
Don Pedro
. Welcome, Signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray."
Much Ado About Nothing.

"Down with your arms, you Englishmen!" said the daring intruder; "and
you, who fight in the cause of sacred liberty, stay your hands, that no
unnecessary blood may flow. Yield yourself, proud Briton, to the power
of the Thirteen Republics!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Borroughcliffe, grasping a pistol, with an air of great
resolution, "the work thickens—I had not included this man in my
estimate of their numbers. Is he a Samson, that his single arm can
change the face of things so suddenly! Down with your own weapon, you
masquerader! or, at the report of this pistol, your body shall be made a
target for twenty bullets."

"And thine for a hundred!" returned the Pilot.—"Without there! wind
your call, fellow, and bring in our numbers. We will let this confident
gentleman feel his weakness."

He had not done speaking, before the shrill whistle of a boatswain rose
gradually on the ears of the listeners, until the sense of hearing
became painfully oppressed by the piercing sounds that rang under the
arched roof of the hall, and penetrated even to the most distant
recesses of the abbey. A tremendous rush of men followed, who drove in
before them the terrified fragment of Borroughcliffe's command, that had
held the vestibule; and the outer room became filled with a dark mass of
human bodies.

"Let them hear ye, lads!" cried their leader; "the abbey is your own!"

The roaring of a tempest was not louder than the shout that burst from
his followers, who continued their cheers, peal on peal, until the very
roof of the edifice appeared to tremble with their vibrations. Numerous
dark and shaggy heads were seen moving around the passage; some cased in
the iron-bound caps of the frigate's boarders, and others glittering
with the brazen ornaments of her marine guard. The sight of the latter
did not fail to attract the eye of Manual, who rushed among the throng,
and soon reappeared, followed by a trusty band of his own men, who took
possession of the post held by the soldiers of Borroughcliffe, while the
dialogue was continued between the leaders of the adverse parties.

Thus far Colonel Howard had yielded to his guest, with a deep reverence
for the principles of military subordination, the functions of a
commander; but, now that affairs appeared to change so materially, he
took on himself the right to question these intruders into his dwelling.

"By what authority, sir," the colonel demanded, "is it that you dare
thus to invade the castle of a subject of this realm? Do you come
backed by the commission of the lord lieutenant of the county, or has
your warrant the signature of his majesty's secretary for the home
department?"