The Pilot (58 page)

"What, before we know from whom we run!" cried Griffith; "my life on it,
there is no single ship King George owns but would tire of the sport
before she had played a full game of bowls with—"

The haughty air of the young man was daunted by the severe look he
encountered in the eye of the Pilot, and he suddenly ceased, though
inwardly chafing with impatient pride.

"The same eye that detected the canvas above the fog might have seen the
flag of a vice-admiral fluttering still nearer the heavens," returned
the collected stranger; "and England, faulty as she may be, is yet too
generous to place a flag-officer in time of war in command of a frigate,
or a captain in command of a fleet. She knows the value of those who
shed their blood in her behalf, and it is thus that she is so well
served! Believe me, Captain Munson, there is nothing short of a ship of
the line under that symbol of rank and that broad show of canvas!"

"We shall see, sir, we shall see," returned the old officer, whose
manner grew decided, as the danger appeared to thicken; "beat to
quarters, Mr. Griffith, for we have none but enemies to expect on this
coast"

The order was instantly issued, when Griffith remarked, with a more
temperate zeal:

"If Mr. Gray be right, we shall have reason to thank God that we are so
light of heel!"

The cry of "a strange vessel close aboard the frigate" having already
flown down the hatches, the ship was in an uproar at the first tap of
the drum. The seamen threw themselves from their hammocks, and lashing
them rapidly into long, hard bundles, they rushed to the decks, where
they were dexterously stowed in the netting, to aid the defences of the
upper part of the vessel. While this tumultuous scene was exhibiting,
Griffith gave a secret order to Merry, who disappeared, leading his
trembling cousins to a place of safety in the inmost depths of the ship.

The guns were cleared of their lumber and loosened. The bulkheads were
knocked down, and the cabin relieved of its furniture; and the gun-deck
exhibited one unbroken line of formidable cannon, arranged in all the
order of a naval battery ready to engage. Arm-chests were thrown open,
and the decks strewed with pikes, cutlasses, pistols, and all the
various weapons for boarding. In short, the yards were slung, and every
other arrangement was made with a readiness and dexterity that were
actually wonderful, though all was performed amid an appearance of
disorder and confusion that rendered the ship another Babel during the
continuance of the preparations. In a very few minutes everything was
completed, and even the voices of the men ceased to be heard answering
to their names, as they were mustered at their stations, by their
respective officers. Gradually the ship became as quiet as the grave;
and when even Griffith or his commander found it necessary to speak,
their voices were calmer, and their tones more mild than usual. The
course of the vessel was changed to an oblique line from that in which
their enemy was approaching, though the appearance of flight was to be
studiously avoided to the last moment. When nothing further remained to
be done, every eye became fixed on the enormous pile of swelling canvas
that was rising, in cloud over cloud, far above the fog, and which was
manifestly moving, like driving vapor, swiftly to the north. Presently
the dull, smoky boundary of the mist which rested on the water was
pushed aside in vast volumes, and the long taper spars that projected
from the bowsprit of the strange ship issued from the obscurity, and
were quickly followed by the whole of the enormous fabric to which they
were merely light appendages. For a moment, streaks of reluctant vapor
clung to the huge floating pile; but they were soon shaken off by the
rapid vessel, and the whole of her black hull became distinct to the
eye.

"One, two, three rows of teeth!" said Boltrope, deliberately counting
the tiers of guns that bristled along the sides of the enemy; "a three-
decker! Jack Manly would show his stern to such a fellow t, and even the
bloody Scotchman would run!"

"Hard up with your helm, quartermaster!" cried Captain Munson; "there is
indeed no time to hesitate, with such an enemy within a quarter of a
mile! Turn the hands up, Mr. Griffith, and pack on the ship from her
trucks to her lower studdingsail-booms. Be stirring, sir, be stirring!
Hard up with your helm! Hard up, and be damn'd to you!"

The unusual earnestness of their aged commander acted on the startled
crew like a voice from the deep, and they waited not for the usual
signals of the boatswain and drummer to be given, before they broke away
from their guns, and rushed tumultuously to aid in spreading the desired
canvas. There was one minute of ominous confusion, that to an
inexperienced eye would have foreboded the destruction of all order in
the vessel, during which every hand, and each tongue, seemed in motion;
but it ended in opening the immense folds of light duck which were
displayed along the whole line of the masts, far beyond the ordinary
sails, overshadowing the waters for a great distance, on either side of
the vessel. During the moment of inaction that succeeded this sudden
exertion, the breeze, which had brought up the three-decker, fell
fresher on the sails of the frigate, and she started away from her
dangerous enemy with a very perceptible advantage in point of sailing.

"The fog rises!" cried Griffith; "give us but the wind for an hour, and
we shall run her out of gunshot!"

"These nineties are very fast off the wind," returned the captain, in a
low tone, that was intended only for the ears of his first lieutenant
and the Pilot; "and we shall have a struggle for it."

The quick eye of the stranger was glancing over the movements of his
enemy, while he answered:

"He finds we have the heels of him already! he is making ready, and we
shall be fortunate to escape a broadside! Let her yaw a little, Mr.
Griffith; touch her lightly with the helm; if we are raked, sir, we are
lost!"

The captain sprang on the taffrail of his ship with the activity of a
younger man, and in an instant he perceived the truth of the other's
conjecture.

Both vessels now ran for a few minutes, keenly watching each other's
motions like two skilful combatants; the English ship making slight
deviations from the line of her course, and then, as her movements were
anticipated by the other, turning as cautiously in the opposite
direction, until a sudden and wide sweep of her huge bows told the
Americans plainly on which tack to expect her. Captain Munson made a
silent but impressive gesture with his arm, as if the crisis were too
important for speech, which indicated to the watchful Griffith the way
he wished the frigate sheered, to avoid the weight of the impending
danger. Both vessels whirled swiftly up to the wind, with their heads
towards the land; and as the huge black side of the three-decker,
checkered with its triple batteries, frowned full upon her foe, it
belched forth a flood of fire and smoke, accompanied by a bellowing roar
that mocked the surly moanings of the sleeping ocean. The nerves of the
bravest man in the frigate contracted their fibres, as the hurricane of
iron hurtled by them, and each eye appeared to gaze in stupid wonder, as
if tracing the flight of the swift engines of destruction. But the voice
of Captain Munson was heard in the din, shouting while he waved his hat
earnestly in the required direction:

"Meet her! meet her with the helm, boy! meet her, Mr. Griffith, meet
her!"

Griffith had so far anticipated this movement as to have already ordered
the head of the frigate to be turned in its former course, when, struck
by the unearthly cry of the last tones uttered by his commander, he bent
his head, and beheld the venerable seaman driven through the air, his
hat still waving, his gray hair floating in the wind, and his eye set in
the wild look of death.

"Great God!" exclaimed the young man, rushing to the side of the ship,
where he was just in time to see the lifeless body disappear in the
waters that were dyed in its blood; "he has been struck by a shot! Lower
away the boat, lower away the jolly-boat, the barge, the tiger, the—"

"'Tis useless," interrupted the calm, deep voice of the Pilot; "he has
met a warrior's end, and he sleeps in a sailor's grave! The ship is
getting before the wind again, and the enemy is keeping his vessel
away."

The youthful lieutenant was recalled by these words to his duty, and
reluctantly turned his eyes away from the bloody spot on the waters,
which the busy frigate had already passed, to resume the command of the
vessel with a forced composure.

"He has cut some of our running-gear," said the master, whose eye had
never ceased to dwell on the spars and rigging of the ship; "and there's
a splinter out of the maintopmast that is big enough for a fid! He has
let daylight through some of our canvas too; but, taking it by-and-
large, the squall has gone over and little harm done. Didn't I hear
something said of Captain Munson getting jammed by a shot?"

"He is killed!" said Griffith, speaking in a voice that was yet husky
with horror—"he is dead, sir, and carried overboard; there is more need
that we forget not ourselves, in this crisis."

"Dead!" said Boltrope, suspending the operation of his active jaws for a
moment, in surprise; "and buried in a wet jacket! Well, it is lucky 'tis
no worse; for damme if I did not think every stick in the ship would
have been cut out of her!"

With this consolatory remark on his lips, the master walked slowly
forward, continuing his orders to repair the damages with a singleness
of purpose that rendered him, however uncouth as a friend, an invaluable
man in his station.

Griffith had not yet brought his mind to the calmness that was so
essential to discharge the duties which had thus suddenly and awfully
devolved on him, when his elbow was lightly touched by the Pilot, who
had drawn closer to his side.

"The enemy appear satisfied with the experiment," said the stranger;
"and as we work the quicker of the two, he loses too much ground to
repeat it, if he be a true seaman."

"And yet as he finds we leave him so fast," returned Griffith, "he must
see that all his hopes rest in cutting us up aloft. I dread that he will
come by the wind again, and lay us under his broadside; we should need a
quarter of an hour to run without his range, if he were anchored!"

"He plays a surer game—see you not that the vessel we made in the
eastern board shows the hull of a frigate? 'Tis past a doubt that they
are of one squadron, and that the expresses have sent them in our wake.
The English admiral has spread a broad clew, Mr. Griffith; and, as he
gathers in his ships, he sees that his game has been successful."

The faculties of Griffith had been too much occupied with the hurry of
the chase to look at the ocean; but, startled at the information of the
Pilot, who spoke coolly, though like a man sensible of the existence of
approaching danger, he took the glass from the other, and with his own
eye examined the different vessels in sight. It is certain that the
experienced officer, whose flag was flying above the light sails of the
three-decker, saw the critical situation of his chase, and reasoned much
in the same manner as the Pilot, or the fearful expedient apprehended by
Griffith would have been adopted. Prudence, however, dictated that he
should prevent his enemy from escaping by pressing so closely on his
rear as to render it impossible for the American to haul across his bows
and run into the open sea between his own vessel and the nearest frigate
of his squadron. The unpractised reader will be able to comprehend the
case better by accompanying the understanding eye of Griffith, as it
glanced from point to point, following the whole horizon. To the west
lay the land, along which the Alacrity was urging her way industriously,
with the double purpose of keeping her consort abeam, and of avoiding a
dangerous proximity to their powerful enemy. To the east, bearing off
the starboard bow of the American frigate, was the vessel first seen,
and which now began to exhibit the hostile appearance of a ship of war,
steering in a line converging towards themselves, and rapidly drawing
nigher; while far in the northeast was a vessel as yet faintly
discerned, whose evolutions could not be mistaken by one who understood
the movements of nautical warfare.

"We are hemmed in effectually," said Griffith, dropping the glass from
his eye; "and I know not but our wisest course would be to haul in to
the land, and, cutting everything light adrift, endeavor to pass the
broadside of the flag-ship."

"Provided she left a rag of canvas to do it with!" returned the Pilot.
"Sir, 'tis an idle hope! She would strip your ship in ten minutes, to her
plankshears. Had it not been for a lucky wave on which so many of her
shot struck and glanced upwards, we should have nothing to boast of left
from the fire she has already given; we must stand on, and drop the
three-decker as far as possible."

"But the frigates?" said Griffith, "What are we to do with the
frigates?"

"Fight them!" returned the Pilot, in a low determined voice; "fight
them! Young man, I have borne the stars and stripes aloft in greater
straits than this, and even with honor! Think not that my fortune will
desert me now."

"We shall have an hour of desperate battle!"

"On that we may calculate; but I have lived through whole days of
bloodshed! You seem not one to quail at the sight of an enemy."

"Let me proclaim your name to the men!" said Griffith; "'twill quicken
their blood, and at such a moment be a host in itself."

"They want it not," returned the Pilot, checking the hasty zeal of the
other with his hand. "I would be unnoticed, unless I am known as becomes
me. I will share your Danger, but would not rob you of a tittle of your
glory. Should we come to grapple," he continued, while a smile of
conscious pride gleamed across his face, "I will give forth the word as
a war-cry, and, believe me, these English will quail before it!"