The Pilot (40 page)

"The soldiers are slow at a night muster," Tom concluded; "and from what
I overheard, the express will have to make a crooked course, to double
the head of the bay, so that, but for this northeaster, we might weather
upon them yet; but it's a matter that lies altogether in the will of
Providence. Pull, my hearties, pull—everything depends on your oars to-
night."

Barnstable listened in deep silence to this unexpected narration, which
sounded in the ears of Dillon like his funeral knell. At length, the
suppressed voice of the lieutenant was heard, also, uttering:

"Wretch! if I should cast you into the sea, as food for the fishes, who
could blame me? But if my schooner goes to the bottom, she shall prove
your coffin!"

"Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed."
Tempest
.

The arms of Dillon were released from their confinement by the
cockswain, as a measure of humane caution against accidents, when they
entered the surf; and the captive now availed himself of the
circumstance to bury his features in the folds of his attire, when he
brooded over the events of the last few hours with that mixture of
malignant passion and pusillanimous dread of the future, that formed the
chief ingredients in his character. From this state of apparent quietude
neither Barnstable nor Tom seemed disposed to rouse him by their
remarks, for both were too much engaged with their own gloomy
forebodings, to indulge in any unnecessary words. An occasional
ejaculation from the former, as if to propitiate the spirit of the
storm, as he gazed on the troubled appearance of the elements, or a
cheering cry from the latter to animate his crew, alone were heard amid
the sullen roaring of the waters, and the mournful whistling of the
winds that swept heavily across the broad waste of the German Ocean.
There might have been an hour consumed thus, in a vigorous struggle
between the seamen and the growing billows, when the boat doubled the
northern headland of the desired haven, and shot, at once, from its
boisterous passage along the margin of the breakers into the placid
waters of the sequestered bay, The passing blasts were still heard
rushing above the high lands that surrounded, and, in fact, formed, the
estuary; but the profound stillness of deep night pervaded the secret
recesses, along the unruffled surface of its waters. The shadows of the
hills seemed to have accumulated, like a mass of gloom, in the centre of
the basin, and though every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was
in vain that the anxious seamen endeavored to discover their little
vessel through its density. While the boat glided into this quiet scene,
Barnstable anxiously observed:

"Everything is as still as death."

"God send it is not the stillness of death!" ejaculated the cockswain.
"Here, here," he continued, speaking in a lower tone, as if fearful of
being overheard, "here she lies, sir, more to port; look into the streak
of clear sky above the marsh, on the starboard hand of the wood, there;
that long black line is her maintopmast; I know it by the rake; and
there is her night-pennant fluttering about that bright star; ay, ay,
sir, there go our own stars aloft yet, dancing among the stars in the
heavens! God bless her! God bless her! she rides as easy and as quiet as
a gull asleep!"

"I believe all in her sleep too," returned his commander. "Ha! by
heaven, we have arrived in good time: the soldiers are moving!"

The quick eye of Barnstable had detected the glimmering of passing
lanterns, as they flitted across the embrasures of the battery, and at
the next moment the guarded but distinct sounds of an active bustle on
the decks of the schooner were plainly audible. The lieutenant was
rubbing his hands together, with a sort of ecstasy, that probably will
not be understood by the great majority of our readers, while long Tom
was actually indulging in a paroxysm of his low spiritless laughter, as
these certain intimations of the safety of the Ariel, and of the
vigilance of her crew, were conveyed to their ears; when the whole hull
and taper spars of their floating home became unexpectedly visible, and
the sky, the placid basin, and the adjacent hills, were illuminated by a
flash as sudden and as vivid as the keenest lightning. Both Barnstable
and his cockswain seemed instinctively to strain their eyes towards the
schooner, with an effort to surpass human vision; but ere the rolling
reverberations of the report of a heavy piece of ordnance from the
heights had commenced, the dull, whistling rush of the shot swept over
their heads, like the moaning of a hurricane, and was succeeded by the
plash of the waters, which was followed, in a breath, by the rattling of
the mass of iron, as it bounded with violent fury from rock to rock,
shivering and tearing the fragments that lined the margin of the bay.

"A bad aim with the first gun generally leaves your enemy clean decks,"
said the cockswain, with his deliberate sort of philosophy; "smoke makes
but dim spectacles; besides, the night always grows darkest as you call
off the morning watch."

"That boy is a miracle for his years!" rejoined the delighted
lieutenant. "See, Tom, the younker has shifted his berth in the dark,
and the Englishmen have fired by the day-range they must have taken, for
we left him in a direct line between the battery and yon hummock! What
would have become of us, if that heavy fellow had plunged upon our
decks, and gone out below the water-line?"

"We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our
metal and kentledge would have taken us down," responded Tom; "such a
point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and
not even left the marines time to say a prayer!—tend bow there!"

It is not to be supposed that the crew of the whale-boat continued idle
during this interchange of opinions between the lieutenant and his
cockswain; on the contrary, the sight of their vessel acted on them like
a charm, and, believing that all necessity for caution was now over,
they had expended their utmost strength in efforts that had already
brought them, as the last words of Tom indicated, to the side of the
Ariel. Though every nerve of Barnstable was thrilling with the
excitement produced by his feelings passing from a state of the most
doubtful apprehension to that of a revived and almost confident hope of
effecting his escape, he assumed the command of his vessel with all that
stern but calm authority, that seamen find is most necessary to exert in
the moments of extremest danger. Any one of the heavy shot that their
enemies continued to hurl from their heights into the darkness of the
haven he well knew must prove fatal to them, as it would, unavoidably,
pass through the slight fabric of the Ariel, and open a passage to the
water that no means he possessed could remedy.—His mandates were,
therefore, issued with a full perception of the critical nature of the
emergency, but with that collectedness of manner, and intonation of
voice, that were best adapted to enforce a ready and animated obedience.
Under this impulse, the crew of the schooner soon got their anchor freed
from the bottom, and, seizing their sweeps, they forced her by their
united efforts directly in the face of the battery, under that shore
whose summit was now crowned with a canopy of smoke, that every
discharge of the ordnance tinged with dim colors, like the faintest
tints that are reflected from the clouds towards a setting sun. So long
as the seamen were enabled to keep their little bark under the cover of
the hill, they were, of course, safe; but Barnstable perceived, as they
emerged from its shadow, and were drawing nigh the passage which led
into the ocean, that the action of his sweeps would no longer avail them
against the currents of air they encountered, neither would the darkness
conceal their movements from his enemy, who had already employed men on
the shore to discern the position of the schooner. Throwing off at once,
therefore, all appearance of disguise, he gave forth the word to spread
the canvas of his vessel, in his ordinary cheerful manner.

"Let them do their worst now, Merry," he added; "we have brought them to
a distance that I think will keep their iron above water, and we have no
dodge about us, younker!"

"It must be keener marksmen than the militia, or volunteers, or
fencibles, or whatever they call themselves, behind yon grass-bank, to
frighten the saucy Ariel from the wind," returned the reckless boy; "but
why have you brought Jonah aboard us again, sir? Look at him by the
light of the cabin lamp; he winks at every gun, as if he expected the
shot would hull his own ugly yellow physiognomy. And what tidings have
we, sir, from Mr. Griffith and the marine?"

"Name him not," said Barnstable, pressing the shoulder on which he
lightly leaned, with a convulsive grasp, that caused the boy to yield
with pain; "name him not, Merry; I want my temper and my faculties at
this moment undisturbed, and thinking of the wretch unfits me for my
duty. But, there will come a time! Go forward, sir; we feel the wind,
and have a narrow passage to work through."

The boy obeyed a mandate which was given in the usual prompt manner of
their profession, and which, he well understood, was intended to
intimate that the distance which years and rank had created between
them, but which Barnstable often chose to forget while communing with
Merry, was now to be resumed. The sails had been loosened and set; and,
as the vessel approached the throat of the passage, the gale, which was
blowing with increasing violence, began to make a very sensible
impression on the light bark. The cockswain, who, in the absence of most
of the inferior officers, had been acting, on the forecastle, the part
of one who felt, from his years and experience, that he had some right
to advise, if not to command, at such a juncture, now walked to the
station which his commander had taken, near the helmsman, as if willing
to place himself in the way of being seen.

"Well, Master Coffin," said Barnstable, who well understood the
propensity his old shipmate had to commune with him on all important
occasions, "what think you of the cruise now? Those gentlemen on the
hill make a great noise, but I have lost even the whistling of their
shot; one would think they could see our sails against the broad band of
light which is opening to seaward."

"Ay, ay, sir, they see us, and mean to hit us too; but we are running
across their fire, and that with a ten-knot breeze; but, when we heave
in stays, and get in a line with their guns, we shall see, and it may be
feel, more of their work than we do now; a thirty-two an't trained as
easily as a fowling-piece or a ducking-gun."

Barnstable was struck with the truth of this observation; but as there
existed an immediate necessity for placing the schooner in the very
situation to which the other alluded, he gave his orders at once, and
the vessel came about, and ran with her head pointing towards the sea,
in as short a time as we have taken to record it.

"There, they have us now, or never," cried the lieutenant, when the
evolution was completed. "If we fetch to windward off the northern
point, we shall lay out into the offing, and in ten minutes we might
laugh at Queen Anne's pocket-piece, which, you know, old boy, sent a
ball from Dover to Calais."

"Ay, sir, I've heard of the gun," returned the grave seaman, "and a
lively piece it must have been, if the straits were always of the same
width they are now. But I see that, Captain Barnstable, which is more
dangerous than a dozen of the heaviest cannon that were ever cast can
be, at half a league's distance. The water is bubbling through our lee
scuppers, already, sir."

"And what of that? hav'n't I buried her guns often, and yet kept every
spar in her without crack or splinter?"

"Ay, ay, sir, you have done it, and can do it again, where there is sea-
room, which is all that a man wants for comfort in this life. But when
we are out of these chops, we shall be embayed, with a heavy northeaster
setting dead into the bight; it is that which I fear, Captain
Barnstable, more than all the powder and ball in the whole island."

"And yet, Tom, the balls are not to be despised, either; those fellows
have found out their range, and send their iron within hail again: we
walk pretty fast, Mr. Coffin; but a thirty-two can cut-travel us, with
the best wind that ever blew."

Tom threw a cursory glance towards the battery, which had renewed its
fire with a spirit that denoted they saw their object, as he answered:

"It is never worth a man's while to strive to dodge a shot; for they are
all commissioned to do their work, the same as a ship is commissioned to
cruise in certain latitudes: but for the winds and the weather, they are
given for a seafaring man to guard against, by making or shortening
sail, as the case may be. Now, the headland to the southward stretches
full three leagues to windward, and the shoals lie to the north; among
which God keep us from ever running this craft again!"

"We will beat her out of the bight, old fellow," cried the lieutenant;
"we shall have a leg of three leagues in length to do it in."

"I have known longer legs too short," returned the cockswain, shaking
his head; "a tumbling sea, with a lee-tide, on a lee-shore, makes a sad
lee-way."

The lieutenant was in the act of replying to this saying with a cheerful
laugh, when the whistling of a passing shot was instantly succeeded by a
crash of splintered wood; and at the next moment the head of the
mainmast, after tottering for an instant in the gale, fell towards the
deck, bringing with it the mainsail, and the long line of topmast, that
had been bearing the emblems of America, as the cockswain had expressed
it, among the stars of the heavens.

"That was a most unlucky hit!" Barnstable suffered to escape him in the
concern of the moment; but, instantly resuming all his collectedness of
manner and voice, he gave his orders to clear the wreck, and secure the
fluttering canvas.