CHAPTER XXI
----"When these prodigies Do so conjointly meet, let not men say. These are their reasons,--They are natural, For, I believe they are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon." _Casca._
The reader will discover, by referring to the time consumed in theforegoing events, that the Ariel, with her prize, did not anchor in thebay already mentioned, until Griffith and his party had been for severalhours in the custody of their enemies. The supposed capture of therebel schooner was an incident that excited but little interest, and nosurprise, among a people who were accustomed to consider their seamen asinvincible; and Barnstable had not found it a difficult task to practisehis deception on the few rustics whom curiosity induced to venturealongside the vessels during the short continuance of daylight. When,however, the fogs of evening began to rise along the narrow basin, andthe curvatures of its margin were lost in the single outline of its darkand gloomy border, the young seaman thought it time to apply himself inearnest to his duty. The Alacrity, containing all his own crew, togetherwith the Ariel's wounded, was gotten silently under way; and drivingeasily before the heavy air that swept from the land, she drifted fromthe harbor, until the open sea lay before her, when her sails werespread, and she continued to make the best of her way in quest of thefrigate. Barnstable had watched this movement with breathless anxiety;for on an eminence that completely commanded the waters to somedistance, a small but rude battery had been erected for the purposeof protecting the harbor against the depredations and insults of thesmaller vessels of the enemy; and a guard of sufficient force to managethe two heavy guns it contained was maintained in the work at all times.He was ignorant how far his stratagem had been successful, and it wasonly when he heard the fluttering of the Alacrity's canvas, as sheopened it to the breeze, he felt that he was yet secure.
"'Twill reach the Englishmen's ears," said the boy Merry, who stood onthe forecastle of the schooner, by the side of his commander, listeningwith breathless interest to the sounds; "they set a sentinel on thepoint, as the sun went down, and if he is a trifle better than a deadman, or a marine asleep, he will suspect something is wrong."
"Never!" returned Barnstable, with a long breath, that announced allhis apprehensions were removed; "he will be more likely to believe ita mermaid fanning herself this cool evening, than to suspect the realfact. What say you, Master Coffin? will the soldier smell the truth?"
"They're a dumb race," said the cockswain, casting his eyes over hisshoulders, to ascertain that none of their own marine guard was nearhim; "now, there was our sergeant, who ought to know something, seeingthat he has been afloat these four years, maintained, dead in the faceand eyes of what every man, who has ever doubled Good Hope, knows to betrue, that there was no such vessel to be fallen in with in them seas,as the Flying Dutchman! and then, again, when I told him that he was a'know-nothing,' and asked him if the Dutchman was a more unlikely thingthan that there should be places where the inhabitants split the yearinto two watches, and had day for six months, and night the rest of thetime, the greenhorn laughed in my face, and I do believe he would havetold me I lied, but for one thing."
"And what might that be?" asked Barnstable, gravely.
"Why, sir," returned Tom, stretching his bony fingers, as he surveyedhis broad palm, by the little light that remained, "though I am apeaceable man, I can be roused."
"And you have seen the Flying Dutchman?"
"I never doubled the east cape; though I can find my way through LeMaire in the darkest night that ever fell from the heavens; but I haveseen them that have seen her, and spoken her, too."
"Well, be it so; you must turn flying Yankee, yourself, to-night, MasterCoffin. Man your boat at once, sir, and arm your crew."
The cockswain paused a moment before he proceeded to obey thisunexpected order, and, pointing towards the battery, he inquired, withinfinite phlegm:
"For shore-work, sir? Shall we take the cutlashes and pistols? or shallwe want the pikes?"
"There may be soldiers in our way, with their bayonets," saidBarnstable, musing; "arm as usual, but throw a few long pikes into theboat; and harkye, Master Coffin, out with your tub and whale-line: for Isee you have rigged yourself anew in that way."
The cockswain, who was moving from the forecastle, turned short at thisnew mandate, and with an air of remonstrance, ventured to say:
"Trust an old whaler, Captain Barnstable, who has been used to thesecraft all his life. A whale-boat is made to pull with a tub and line init, as naturally as a ship is made to sail with ballast, and----"
"Out with it, out with it," interrupted the other, with an impatientgesture, that his cockswain knew signified a positive determination.Heaving a sigh at what he deemed his commander's prejudice, Tom appliedhimself without further delay to the execution of the orders. Barnstablelaid his hand familiarly on the shoulder of the boy, and led him to thestern of his little vessel, in profound silence. The canvas hood thatcovered the entrance to the cabin was thrown partly aside; and by thelight of the lamp that was burning in the small apartment, it was easyto overlook, from the deck, what was passing beneath them. Dillon satsupporting his head with his two hands, in a manner that shaded hisface, but in an attitude that denoted deep and abstracted musing.
"I would that I could see the face of my prisoner," said Barnstable, inan undertone, that was audible only to his companion. "The eye of a manis a sort of lighthouse, to tell one how to steer into the haven of hisconfidence, boy."
"And sometimes a beacon, sir, to warn you there is no safe anchoragenear him," returned the ready boy.
"Rogue!" muttered Barnstable, "your cousin Kate spoke there."
"If my cousin Plowden were here, Mr. Barnstable, I know that her opinionof yon gentleman would not be at all more favorable."
"And yet, I have determined to trust him! Listen, boy, and tell me if Iam wrong; you have a quick wit, like some others of your family, and maysuggest something advantageous." The gratified midshipman swelled withthe conscious pleasure of possessing his commander's confidence,and followed to the taffrail, over which Barnstable leaned, while hedelivered the remainder of his communication. "I have gathered from the'longshoremen who have come off this evening, to stare at the vesselwhich the rebels have been able to build, that a party of seamen andmarines have been captured in an old ruin near the Abbey of St. Ruth,this very day."
"'Tis Mr. Griffith!" exclaimed the boy.
"Ay! the wit of your cousin Katherine was not necessary to discoverthat. Now, I have proposed to this gentleman with the Savannah face,that he should go into the abbey, and negotiate an exchange. I will givehim for Griffith, and the crew of the Alacrity for Manual's command andthe Tigers."
"The Tigers!" cried the lad, with emotion; "have they got my Tigers,too? Would to God that Mr. Griffith had permitted me to land!"
"It was no boy's work they were about, and room was scarcer in theirboat than live lumber. But this Mr. Dillon has accepted my proposition,and has pledged himself that Griffith shall return within an hour afterhe is permitted to enter the Abbey; will he redeem his honor from thepledge?"
"He may," said Merry, musing a moment; "for I believe he thinks thepresence of Mr. Griffith under the same roof with Miss Howard a thingto be prevented, if possible; he may be true in this instance, though hehas a hollow look."
"He has bad-looking lighthouses, I will own," said Barnstable; "and yethe is a gentleman, and promises fair; 'tis unmanly to suspect him insuch a matter, and I will have faith! Now listen, sir. The absence ofolder heads must throw great responsibility on your young shoulders;watch that battery as closely as if you were at the mast-head of yourfrigate, on the lookout for an enemy; the instant you see lights movingin it, cut, and run into the offing; you will find me somewhere underthe cliffs, and you will stand off and on, keeping the abbey in sight,until you fall in with us."
Merry gave an attentive ear to these and divers other solemn injunctionsthat he received from his commander, who, having sent the offic
er nextto himself in authority in charge of the prize (the third in commandbeing included in the list of the wounded), was compelled to entrust hisbeloved schooner to the vigilance of a lad whose years gave no promiseof the experience and skill that he actually possessed.
When his admonitory instructions were ended, Barnstable stepped again tothe opening in the cabin-hood, and, for a single moment before he spoke,once more examined the countenance of his prisoner, with a keen eye.Dillon had removed his hands from before his sallow features; and, asif conscious of the scrutiny his looks were to undergo, had concentratedthe whole expression of his forbidding aspect in a settled gaze ofhopeless submission to his fate. At least, so thought his captor, andthe idea touched some of the finer feelings in the bosom of the generousyoung seaman. Discarding, instantly, every suspicion of his prisoner'shonor, as alike unworthy of them both, Barnstable summoned him, in acheerful voice, to the boat. There was a flashing of the featuresof Dillon, at this call, which gave an indefinable expression tohis countenance, that again startled the sailor; but it was so verytransient, and could so easily be mistaken for a smile of pleasureat his promised liberation, that the doubts it engendered passed awayalmost as speedily as the equivocal expression itself. Barnstable was inthe act of following his companion into the boat, when he felt himselfdetained by a slight hold of his arm.
"What would you have?" he asked of the midshipman, who had given him thesignal.
"Do not trust too much to that Dillon, sir," returned the anxious boy,in a whisper; "if you had seen his face, as I did, when the binnaclelight fell upon it, as he came up the cabin ladder, you would put nofaith in him."
"I should have seen no beauty," said the generous lieutenant, laughing;"but there is long Tom, as hard-featured a youth of two score and ten asever washed in brine, who has a heart as big, ay, bigger than that ofa kraaken. A bright watch to you, boy, and remember a keen eye on thebattery." As he was yet speaking, Barnstable crossed the gunwale of hislittle vessel, and it was not until he was seated by the side of hisprisoner that he continued, aloud: "Cast the stops off your sails, Mr.Merry, and see all clear to make a run of everything; recollect, you areshort-handed, sir. God bless ye! and d'ye hear? if there is a man amongyou who shuts more than one eye at a time, I'll make him, when I getback, open both wider than if Tom Coffin's friend, the Flying Dutchman,was booming down upon him. God bless ye, Merry, my boy; give 'em thesquare-sail, if this breeze off-shore holds on till morning:--shoveoff."
As Barnstable gave the last order, he fell back on his seat, and,drawing back his boat-cloak around him maintained a profound silence,until they had passed the two small headlands that fanned the mouthof the harbor. The men pulled, with muffled oars, their long, vigorousstrokes, and the boat glided with amazing rapidity past the objects thatcould be yet indistinctly seen along the dim shore. When, however, theyhad gained the open ocean, and the direction of their little bark waschanged to one that led them in a line with the coast, and within theshadows of the cliffs, the cockswain, deeming that the silence was nolonger necessary to their safety, ventured to break it, as follows:
"A square-sail is a good sail to carry on a craft, dead afore it, andin a heavy sea; but if fifty years can teach a man to know the weather,it's my judgment that should the Ariel break ground after the nightturns at eight bells, she'll need her mainsail to hold her up to hercourse."
The lieutenant started at this sudden interruption, and casting hiscloak from his shoulders, he looked abroad on the waters, as if seekingthose portentous omens which disturbed the imagination of his cockswain.
"How now, Tom," he said, sharply, "have ye turned croaker in your oldage? what see you, to cause such an old woman's ditty?"
"'Tis no song of an old woman," returned the cockswain with solemnearnestness, "but the warning of an old man; and one who has spenthis days where there were no hills to prevent the winds of heaven fromblowing on him, unless they were hills of salt water and foam. I judge,sir, there'll be a heavy northeaster setting in upon us afore themorning watch is called."
Barnstable knew the experience of his old messmate too well not to feeluneasiness at such an opinion, delivered in so confident a manner; butafter again surveying the horizon, the heavens, and the ocean, he said,with a continued severity of manner:
"Your prophecy is idle, this time, Master Coffin; everything looks likea dead calm. This swell is what is left from the last blow; the mistoverhead is nothing but the nightly fog, and you can see, with own eyes,that it is driving seaward; even this land-breeze is nothing but the airof the ground mixing with that of the ocean; it is heavy with dew andfog, but it's as sluggish as a Dutch galliot."
"Ay, sir, it is damp, and there is little of it," rejoined Tom; "but asit comes only from the shore, so it never goes far on the water, It ishard to learn the true signs of the weather, Captain Barnstable, andnone get to know them well, but such as study little else or feel butlittle else. There is only One who can see the winds of heaven, or whocan tell when a hurricane is to begin, or where it will end. Still,a man isn't like a whale or a porpoise, that takes the air in hisnostrils, and never knows whether it is a southeaster or a northwesterthat he feeds upon. Look, broad-off to leeward, sir; see the streak ofclear sky shining under the mists; take an old seafaring man's wordfor it, Captain Barnstable, that whenever the light shines out of theheavens in that fashion, 'tis never done for nothing; besides, the sunset in a dark bank of clouds, and the little moon we had was dry andwindy."
Barnstable listened attentively, and with increasing concern, for hewell knew that his cockswain possessed a quick and almost unerringjudgment of the weather, notwithstanding the confused medley ofsuperstitious omens and signs with which it was blended; but againthrowing himself back in his boat, he muttered:
"Then let it blow; Griffith is worth a heavier risk, and if the batterycan't be cheated, it can be carried."
Nothing further passed on the state of the weather. Dillon had notventured a single remark since he entered the boat, and the cockswainhad the discretion to understand that his officer was willing to beleft to his own thoughts. For nearly an hour they pursued their way withdiligence; the sinewy seamen, who wielded the oars, urging their lightboat along the edge of the surf with unabated velocity, and apparentlywith untired exertions. Occasionally, Barnstable would cast an inquiringglance at the little inlets that they passed, or would note, with aseaman's eye, the small portions of sandy beach that were scattered hereand there along the rocky boundaries of the coast. One in particular, adeeper inlet than common, where a run of fresh water was heard gurglingas it met the tide, he pointed out to his cockswain, by significant butsilent gestures, as a place to be especially noted. Tom, who understoodthe signal as intended for his own eye alone, made his observations onthe spot with equal taciturnity, but with all the minuteness that woulddistinguish one long accustomed to find his way, whether by land orwater, by landmarks and the bearings of different objects. Soon afterthis silent communication between the lieutenant and his cockswain, theboat was suddenly turned, and was in the act of dashing upon the spit ofsand before it, when Barnstable checked the movement by his voice:
"Hold water!" he said; "'tis the sound of oars!"
The seamen held their boat at rest, while a deep attention was given tothe noise that had alarmed the ears of their commander.
"See, sir," said the cockswain, pointing towards the eastern horizon;"it is just rising into the streak of light to seaward of us--now itsettles in the trough--ah! here you have it again!"
"By heavens!" cried Barnstable, "'tis a man-of-war's stroke it pulls; Isaw the oar-blades as they fell! and, listen to the sound! neither yourfisherman nor your smuggler pulls such a regular oar."
Tom had bowed his head nearly to the water, in the act of listening, andnow raising himself, he spoke with confidence:
"That is the Tiger; I know the stroke of her crew as well as I do of myown. Mr. Merry has made them learn the new-fashioned jerk, as they diptheir blades, and they feather with such a r
oll in their rullocks! Icould swear to the stroke."
"Hand me the night-glass," said his commander, impatiently. "I can catchthem, as they are lifted into the streak. You are right, by every starin our flag, Tom!--but there is only one man in her stern-sheets. By mygood eyes, I believe it is that accursed Pilot, sneaking from the land,and leaving Griffith and Manual to die in English prisons. To shore withyou--beach her at once!"
The order was no sooner given than it was obeyed, and in less thantwo minutes the impatient Barnstable, Dillon, and the cockswain, werestanding together on the sands.
The impression he had received, that his friends were abandoned totheir fate by the Pilot, urged the generous young seaman to hastenthe departure of his prisoner, as he was fearful every moment mightinterpose some new obstacle to the success of his plans.
"Mr. Dillon," he said, the instant they were landed, "I exact no newpromise--your honor is already plighted----"
"If oaths can make it stronger," interrupted Dillon, "I will take them."
"Oaths cannot--the honor of a gentleman is, at all times, enough. Ishall send my cockswain with you to the abbey, and you will eitherreturn with him, in person, within two hours, or give Mr. Griffith andCaptain Manual to his guidance. Proceed, sir, you are conditionallyfree; there is an easy opening by which to ascend the cliffs."
Dillon once more thanked his generous captor, and then proceeded toforce his way up the rough eminence.
"Follow, and obey his instructions," said Barnstable to his cockswain,aloud.
Tom, long accustomed to implicit obedience, handled his harpoon, and wasquietly following in the footsteps of his new leader, when he felt thehand of the lieutenant on his shoulder.
"You saw where the brook emptied over the hillock of sand?" saidBarnstable, in an undertone.
Tom nodded assent.
"You will find us there riding without the surf--'Twill not do to trusttoo much to an enemy."
The cockswain made a gesture of great significance with his weapon, thatwas intended to indicate the danger their prisoner would incur should heprove false; when, applying the wooden end of the harpoon to the rocks,he ascended the ravine at a rate that soon brought him to the side ofhis companion.