The Pilot (57 page)

"Sail-ho! The frigate lies broad off to the seaward, sir!"

"Ay, ay; you have been watching with one eye asleep, fellow," returned
Griffith, "or we should have heard you before! Look a little north of
the place where the glare of the sun is coming, Miss Plowden, and you
will be able to see our gallant vessel."

An involuntary cry of pleasure burst from the lips of Katherine, as she
followed his directions, and first beheld the frigate through the medium
of the fluctuating colors of the morning. The undulating outline of the
lazy ocean, which rose and fell heavily against the bright boundary of
the heavens, was without any relief to distract the eye as it fed
eagerly on the beauties of the solitary ship. She was riding sluggishly
on the long seas, with only two of her lower and smaller sails spread,
to hold her in command; but her tall masts and heavy yards were painted
against the fiery sky in strong lines of deep black, while even the
smallest cord in the mazes of her rigging might be distinctly traced,
stretching from spar to spar, with the beautiful accuracy of a picture.
At moments, when her huge hull rose on a billow and was lifted against
the background of the sky, its shape and dimensions were brought into
view; but these transient glimpses were soon lost, as it settled into
the trough, leaving the waving spars bowing gracefully towards the
waters, as if about to follow the vessel into the bosom of the deep. As
a clearer light gradually stole on the senses, the delusion of colors
and distance vanished together, and when a flood of day preceded the
immediate appearance of the sun, the ship became plainly visible within
a mile of the cutter, her black hull checkered with ports, and her high,
tapering masts exhibiting their proper proportions and hues.

At the first cry of "A sail!" the crew of the Alacrity had been aroused
from their slumbers by the shrill whistle of the boatswain, and long
before the admiring looks of the two cousins had ceased to dwell on the
fascinating sight of morning chasing night from the hemisphere, the
cutter was again in motion to join her consort. It seemed but a moment
before their little vessel was in, what the timid females thought, a
dangerous proximity to the frigate, under whose lee she slowly passed,
in order to admit of the following dialogue between Griffith and his
aged commander:

"I rejoice to see you, Mr. Griffith!" cried the captain, who stood in
the channel of his ship, waving his hat in the way of cordial greeting.
"You are welcome back, Captain Manual, welcome, welcome, all of you, my
boys! as welcome as a breeze in the calm latitudes." As his eye,
however, passed along the deck of the Alacrity, it encountered the
shrinking figures of Cecilia and Katherine; and a dark shade of
displeasure crossed his decent features, while he added: "How's this,
gentlemen? The frigate of Congress is neither a ballroom nor a church,
that is to be thronged with women!"

"Ay, ay," muttered Boltrope to his friend the chaplain, "now the old man
has hauled out his mizzen, you'll see him carry a weather-helm! He wakes
up about as often as the trades shift their points, and that's once in
six months. But when there has been a neap-tide in his temper for any
time, you're sure to find it followed by a flood with a vengeance. Let
us hear what the first lieutenant can say in favor of his petticoat
quality!"

The blushing sky had not exhibited a more fiery glow than gleamed in the
fine face of Griffith for a moment; but, struggling with his disgust, he
answered with bitter emphasis:

"'Twas the pleasure of Mr. Gray, sir, to bring off the prisoners."

"Of Mr. Gray!" repeated the captain, instantly losing every trace of
displeasure in an air of acquiescence. "Come-to, sir, on the same tack
with the ship, and I will hasten to order the accommodation-ladder
rigged, to receive our guests!"

Boltrope listened to this sudden alteration in the language of his
commander with sufficient wonder; nor was it until he had shaken his
head repeatedly, with the manner of one who saw deeper than his
neighbors into a mystery, that he found leisure to observe:

"Now, parson, I suppose if you held an almanac in your fist, you'd think
you could tell which way we shall have the wind to-morrow! but damn me,
priest, if better calculators than you haven't failed! Because a
lubberly—no, he's a thorough seaman, I'll say that for the fellow!—
because a pilot chooses to say, 'Bring me off these here women,' the
ship is to be so cluttered with she-cattle, that a man will be obligated
to spend half his time in making his manners! Now mind what I tell you,
priest, this very frolic will cost Congress the price of a year's wages
for an able-bodied seaman in bunting and canvas for screens; besides the
wear and tear of running-gear in shortening sail, in order that the
women need not be 'stericky in squalls!"

The presence of Mr. Boltrope being required to take charge of the
cutter, the divine was denied an opportunity of dissenting from the
opinions of his rough companion; for the loveliness of their novel
shipmates had not failed to plead loudly in their favor with every man
in the cutter whose habits and ideas had not become rigidly set in
obstinacy.

By the time the Alacrity was hove-to, with her head towards the frigate,
the long line of boats that she had been towing during the latter part
of the night were brought to her side, and filled with men. A wild scene
of unbridled merriment and gayety succeeded, while the seamen were
exchanging the confinement of the prize for their accustomed lodgings in
the ship, during which the reins of discipline were slightly relaxed.
Loud laughter was echoed from boat to boat, as they glided by each
other; and rude jests, interlarded with quaint humors and strange oaths,
were freely bandied from mouth to mouth. The noise, however, soon
ceased, and the passage of Colonel Howard and his wards was then
effected with less precipitancy and due decorum. Captain Munson, who had
been holding a secret dialogue with Griffith and the Pilot, received his
unexpected guests with plain hospitality, but with an evident desire to
be civil. He politely yielded to their service his two convenient
staterooms, and invited them to partake, in common with himself, of the
comforts of the great cabin.

"Furious press the hostile squadron,
Furious he repels their rage.
Loss of blood at length enfeebles;
Who can war with thousands wage?"
Spanish War Song.

We cannot detain the narrative to detail the scenes which busy wonder,
aided by the relation of divers marvelous feats, produced among the
curious seamen who remained in the ship, and their more fortunate
fellows who had returned in glory from an expedition to the land. For
nearly an hour the turbulence of a general movement was heard, issuing
from the deep recesses of the frigate, and the boisterous sounds of
hoarse merriment were listened to by the officers in indulgent silence;
but all these symptoms of unbridled humor ceased by the time the morning
repast was ended, when the regular sea-watch was set, and the greater
portion of those whose duty did not require their presence on the
vessel's deck, availed themselves of the opportunity to repair the loss
of sleep sustained in the preceding night. Still no preparations were
made to put the ship in motion, though long and earnest consultations,
which were supposed to relate to their future destiny, were observed by
the younger officers to be held between their captain, the first
lieutenant, and the mysterious Pilot. The latter threw many an anxious
glance along the eastern horizon, searching it minutely with his glass,
and then would turn his impatient looks at the low, dense bank of fog,
which, stretching across the ocean like a barrier of cloud, entirely
intercepted the view towards the south. To the north and along the land
the air was clear, and the sea without a spot of any kind; but in the
east a small white sail had been discovered since the opening of day,
which was gradually rising above the water, and assuming the appearance
of a vessel of some size. Every officer on the quarter-deck in his turn
had examined this distant sail, and had ventured an opinion on its
destination and character; and even Katherine, who with her cousin was
enjoying, in the open air, the novel beauties of the ocean, had been
tempted to place her sparkling eye to a glass, to gaze at the stranger.

"It is a collier," Griffith said, "who has hauled from the land in the
late gale, and who is luffing up to his course again. If the wind holds
here in the south, and he does not get into that fog-bank, we can stand
off for him and get a supply of fuel before eight bells are struck."

"I think his head is to the northward, and that he is steering off the
wind," returned the Pilot, in a musing manner, "If that Dillon succeeded
in getting his express far enough along the coast, the alarm has been
spread, and we must be wary. The convoy of the Baltic trade is in the
North Sea, and news of our presence could easily have been taken off to
it by some of the cutters that line the coast, I could wish to get the
ship as far south as the Helder!"

"Then we lose this weather tide!" exclaimed the impatient Griffith;
"surely we have the cutter as a lookout! besides, by beating into the
fog, we shall lose the enemy, if enemy it be, and it is thought meet for
an American frigate to skulk from her foes!"

The scornful expression that kindled the eye of the Pilot, like a gleam
of sunshine lighting for an instant some dark dell and laying bare its
secrets, was soon lost in the usually quiet look of his glance, though
he hesitated like one who was struggling with his passions before he
answered:

"If prudence and the service of the States require it, even this proud
frigate must retreat and hide from the meanest of her enemies. My
advice, Captain Munson, is, that you make sail, and beat the ship to
windward, as Mr. Griffith has suggested, and that you order the cutter
to precede us, keeping more in with the land."

The aged seaman, who evidently suspended his orders only to receive an
intimation of the other's pleasure, immediately commanded his youthful
assistant to issue the necessary mandates to put these measures in
force. Accordingly, the Alacrity, which vessel had been left under the
command of the junior lieutenant of the frigate, was quickly under way;
and, making short stretches to windward, she soon entered the bank of
fog, and was lost to the eye. In the mean time the canvas of the ship
was loosened, and spread leisurely, in order not to disturb the portion
of the crew who were sleeping; and, following her little consort, she
moved heavily through the water, bearing up against the dull breeze.

The quiet of regular duty had succeeded to the bustle of making sail;
and, as the rays of the sun fell less obliquely on the distant land,
Katherine and Cecilia were amusing Griffith by vain attempts to point
out the rounded eminences which they fancied lay in the vicinity of the
deserted mansion of St. Ruth. Barnstable, who had resumed his former
station in the frigate as her second lieutenant, was pacing the opposite
side of the quarter-deck, holding under his arm the speaking-trumpet,
which denoted that he held the temporary control of the motions of the
ship, and inwardly cursing the restraint that kept him from the side of
his mistress. At this moment of universal quiet, when nothing above low
dialogues interrupted the dashing of the waves as they were thrown
lazily aside by the bows of the vessel, the report of a light cannon
burst out of the barrier of fog, and rolled by them on the breeze,
apparently vibrating with the rising and sinking of the waters.

"There goes the cutter!" exclaimed Griffith, the instant the sound was
heard.

"Surely," said the captain, "Somers is not so indiscreet as to scale his
guns, after the caution he has received!"

"No idle scaling of guns is intended there," said the Pilot, straining
his eyes to pierce the fog, but soon turning away in disappointment at
his inability to succeed—"that gun is shotted, and has been fired in
the hurry of a sudden signal!—can your lookouts see nothing, Mr.
Barnstable?"

The lieutenant of the watch hailed the man aloft, and demanded if
anything were visible in the direction of the wind, and received for
answer that the fog intercepted the view in that quarter of the heavens,
but that the sail in the east was a ship, running large, or before the
wind. The Pilot shook his head doubtingly at this information, but still
he manifested a strong reluctance to relinquish the attempt of getting
more to the southward. Again he communed with the commander of the
frigate, apart from all other ears; and while they yet deliberated, a
second report was heard, leaving no doubt that the Alacrity was firing
signal-guns for their particular attention.

"Perhaps," said Griffith, "he wishes to point out his position, or to
ascertain ours; believing that we are lost like himself in the mist"

"We have our compasses!" returned the doubting captain; "Somers has a
meaning in what he says!"

"See!" cried Katherine, with girlish delight, "see, my cousin! see,
Barnstable! how beautifully that vapor is wreathing itself in clouds
above the smoky line of fog! It stretches already into the very heavens
like a lofty pyramid!"

Barnstable sprang lightly on a gun, as he repeated her words:

"Pyramids of fog! and wreathing clouds! By heaven!" he shouted, "'tis a
tall ship! Royals, skysails, and stud-dingsails all abroad! She is
within a mile of us, and comes down like a racehorse, with a spanking
breeze, dead before it! Now know we why Somers is speaking in the mist!"

"Ay," cried Griffith, "and there goes the Alacrity, just breaking out of
the fog, hovering in for the land!"

"There is a mighty hull under all that cloud of canvas, Captain Munson,"
said the observant but calm Pilot: "it is time, gentlemen, to edge away
to leeward."