Part 8

“And into it also, eh!” said Westbrook.

O’Shaughnessy made no reply, but shrugging his shoulders, the conversation dropped.

The strange sail had by this time been made out to be a three-decker, and so rapidly did he gain on us that we now counted upwards of forty guns on a side. As the breeze freshened, moreover, his velocity increased. Throwing out fold after fold of canvass, until a pyramid of snowy duck rose towering above his decks, and the water rolled in cataracts of foam beneath his gigantic bows, he seemed determined to overtake us before the breeze which he brought with him could by any possibility subside.

Meanwhile we made every effort to escape; but without success. The very freshness of the breeze, owing to our comparatively light canvass, was in favor of our adversary. In vain we threw out every sail; in vain the ropes were hauled as taut as they could be drawn; in vain as a last resort, our sails were wet down even to the trucks—every endeavor to increase our speed only appeared to weary out our crew, without altering the relative velocity of the two ships.

“By my faith! but yonder fellow sails well,” said the skipper, “I little thought anything that carried canvass could come up in this style, hand over hand, to the saucy Fire-Fly. What think you, Mr. Stevens?”

The lieutenant shook his head, and answered,

“I fear, sir, we shall have to choose betwixt a surrender or a hopeless fight.”

“Ay, ay—that’s true,” said the skipper, abstractedly, “but he’s not overhauled us yet, and there’s many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, you know.”

“Pray God it may be so now!”

By this time the man-of-war had come up within long cannon-shot of the schooner, and just as the lieutenant finished his ejaculation, the stranger luffed beautifully up a point or two, and the next minute a sheet of flame streamed out from one of her bow-guns, and a shot whistling past us aloft, plunged headlong into the sea to leeward. At the same moment a roll of bunting shot up to the gaff of the stranger, and slowly unrolling blew out upon the air.

“The English cross—by all that’s holy!” ejaculated the skipper.

There was a dead silence of more than a minute. Each one looked into his neighbor’s face. The captain, with a compressed lip and a disturbed brow, gazed, without speaking, on the man-of-war; while the discipline of the service, as well as the sudden knowledge of our peril, were sufficient to restrain the officers from conversation. Directly, however, the Englishman luffed again; another sheet of fire blazed from her bows; and a ball, sent this time with more certainty of aim, went through our fore topsail just above the foot.

“Show him the bunting,” growled the captain through his clenched teeth, “and get ready the long gun.”

We looked at each other in mute astonishment. I thought of Paul Jones in a like emergency. But no one dreamed of expostulation, even if such a thing had been allowable from inferiors. The flag was brought.

“Send the bunting aloft.”

“Ay, ay, sir!”

The huge ensign, at the word, fluttered to the gaff, and whipping out on the breeze, disclosed the cognizance of the commonwealth, emblazoned on its surface. No sooner did it unclose its folds than the man-of-war luffed rapidly, and several points more than at either the preceding times; while simultaneously a sheet of continuous fire rolled along his side, and a shower of balls, ploughing up the sea betwixt the two vessels, fell like hail around the schooner. At the same moment I heard a noise like rattling thunder at my side, and looking up I saw the mainsail coming down by the run. Quicker than thought it lay a wreck across the schooner.

“We are sinking,” shouted a voice. It was that of the purser. The terror of the speaker betrayed itself in every tone. “God have mercy on us, for we are going down.”

“Silence, fool!” sternly said the skipper, and then raising his voice he thundered, “what have they hurt?”

“They’ve cut away the throat halyards, and the peak has parted with the strain,” answered the first lieutenant, who, with Westbrook and myself had sprung at once to ascertain the real cause of the alarm.

“Let new ropes be reeved—all hands to your duty—let drive with the long gun.”

The old gunner had been calmly waiting until the momentary confusion should subside; and now, with his usual flourish, he applied the match.

“Hit him, by the Lord Harry—and cut down his topsail,” ejaculated the old sea-dog in high glee, as the stranger’s fore-topsail fell from the cap.

This daring bravado appeared to inflame the haughty Englishman beyond all endurance, for, after the momentary vacillation in his course occasioned by the loss of so important a sail, he put his helm down again, and without losing headway to fire any more unimportant shot, rapidly approached us. Our fate was now, to all appearance, sealed. We gave ourselves up for lost. Dismal recollections of all we had heard respecting the prison-ships of our enemy, or of the more summary punishment of death sometimes inflicted on our countrymen, came crowding on our minds. We looked into each other’s faces in silence, but, though no word was spoken, on every countenance we read the determination of a brave man, to die sooner than to submit. Such a resolution may seem strange to others, but we were like men to whom defeat is worse than death. We could not submit. To us the horrors of a prison-ship were more appalling than those of a grave. We were resolved, if we could not effect an escape, to die at bay.

“I would give a year’s pay,” at length ejaculated the skipper, but in a low tone so as not to be heard by the crew, “if this breeze would but die away here. We should then have a chance, however slight. But to be cooped up like a rat in a hole—it is too bad!”

The sentence had scarcely been concluded, when, as if in answer to the skipper’s aspiration, the breeze blew out in a sudden gust, and then died rapidly away, until it had almost subsided.

“Ah!” said the captain, “my wish has had a magical effect. I’ faith, we’re dropping the Englishman already. Oh! for two hours of calm.”

“And we shall have it soon, though not for long,” said the old quarter-master, for the first time for nearly an hour taking a complete survey of the sky, and shaking his head knowingly, but with something of an ominous gesture. As he concluded his scrutiny, he said, “there’s something brewing off here to leeward which will make us before many hours reel like a drunken man, or my name isn’t Jack Martingale.”

“What mean you?” said the lieutenant.

“You’ve mayhap never sailed in these latitudes, or you would have seen a hurricane afore now,” said the quarter-master. “Well, yonder tiny cloud, down there on the sea-board in a line with that second ratlin, holds in itself such a capful of wind as will drive the stoutest ship like a feather before it—ay! or send Noah’s ark itself, which the parson says was bigger than a fleet of ninety-fours, skimming away swifter than a sea-gull over the seas.”

We all turned in the direction to which the old fellow pointed us, and sure enough, about five or six degrees above the horizon, might be seen a small dark insignificant looking cloud, hanging like a speck upon the azure surface of the sky. Had we not known the quarter-master’s superior experience, the younger portion of our group might have discredited his prophecy. As it was, we were almost incredulous. Yet as we gazed on the little cloud, we noticed that it slowly but steadily increased in size. Our attention, however, was at this moment recalled from the signs to leeward by the renewed demonstrations of an attack on the part of the ninety-four.

The wind, during our short colloquy, I have said, had blown fiercer than ever, and then nearly died away. This partial calm, however, had been of short duration. In a few minutes the breeze was seen ruffling the sea again, from a quarter of the horizon, however, several points to the leeward of its old position. After blowing freshly for a few minutes this gust too ceased. Meantime the enemy had gained little, if anything, upon us, and no doubt fancying he perceived the signs of unsettled weather in the sky, and therefore wishing to bring the chase to a speedy termination, he luffed up once more, and opened a fire on us with his bow guns. It now become a struggle of the most exciting character. Our mainsail had by this time been repaired, and the time lost to the foe in luffing nearly counterbalancing his superior sailing, we were enabled to keep just within long cannon shot of the Englishman, and, by maintaining this distance, to protract our surrender until a chance ball should happen to disable us, or night should set in to favor our escape.

“He gains nothing on us now, I think,” said the skipper, “but his guns are well served. That was truly sent,” he suddenly added, as a ball whistled by within a few feet of his head, and then plunged into the sea some fathoms off.

“And there comes the breeze again,” said the lieutenant, “how the Englishman walks up toward us!”

It was even as he said. The breeze which, during the last five minutes, had been chopping about the horizon, now blowing in fitful gusts, and now dying away into an almost perfect calm, came out, as the lieutenant spoke, from its old quarter, and heeling the tall ninety-four over until his coppers glanced in the sunlight, sent him like an arrow from the string across the deep. We could see the breeze ruffling the sea ahead of the enemy, and keeping provokingly but a few cables’ length in his advance for many minutes before it reached ourselves, and when at length it bellied out our canvass, and we began to forge along, the man-of-war had lessened by one-third the distance that had intervened betwixt us. As if re-inspired by his advantage, the Englishman began to fire on us with rapid and murderous velocity. Ball after ball came whizzing after us, some tearing up the bulwark, some madly splintering the hull, and more than one cutting its terrific passage along our decks. In vain we made the most desperate exertions to increase our speed. The strength of the breeze was a disadvantage against which our comparatively light canvass could not contend. Every moment, we saw, lessened the distance between us and the foe. It seemed madness to contend further. Already the ninety-four was in dreadful proximity. The schooner was becoming terribly cut up in her hull, and it seemed a miracle that her spars had hitherto escaped. If we should be crippled, and we knew not but the next shot might do it, how could we expect any mercy from our foe? Rebels already in the eye of our pursuers we had nothing to hope for if captured. Every one felt this. No one therefore dreamed of a surrender. As the wounded men were carried below, their departing looks were directed frowningly on the enemy,—and the last words of the dying were to conjure their messmates never to give up.

“Never flinch, my hearties,” ejaculated the gunner, as one of his crew was struck by a splinter; and had to be carried below. “Give it to ’em, for villains and tyrants as they are. Hah! I have him in a line there. Stand by all now,” and giving a last squint along his piece, he applied the match, and gazing after the shot as it went whistling away, exclaimed, “hit him on the quarter. I wonder who’s hurt,” he added, as a sudden commotion was seen on the enemy’s deck; “somebody of more note than a mere topman, I guess, or they wouldn’t be in such a flurry about it.”

“And that’s the answer,” said Westbrook, as a ball struck us forward, scattering the bulwark about the deck, and killing a man outright at the gunner’s side.

“Swab her out there,” said the imperturbable old sea-dog, without flinching in the least, “and we’ll revenge poor Harry Ratline. By the Lord above, I’ll make them pay for this. Work faster, you lubberly scoundrel,” he continued, cuffing the powder-boy. “There, that will do. And now let’s see what damage you’ll do, old red-mouth!” and patting his piece familiarly, he applied the match, and stooping on his knees after the recoil, glanced along the gun to mark the path of his ball. It struck the ninety-four just by the fore-chains, entering the first port aft. It needed nothing to tell the deadly revenge of the shot. Even amid the roar of the contest we could almost fancy we heard the shrieks of the wounded and dying from that fatal discharge.

So intensely occupied had been every thought, during these last few minutes, that I had not noticed the gradual subsidence in the wind; but my attention was at this moment aroused to it by an exclamation of O’Shaughnessy at my side, and turning my gaze to leeward, I saw at once the cause of his wonder.

How long had elapsed since we had noticed the speck on the horizon to which the old quarter-master had called our attention I have no means of determining; but, owing perhaps to the rapidity with which all the subsequent events had transpired, it seemed to be scarcely five minutes. In that interval a radical change had come over the heavens. The whole of the larboard horizon was covered with a dense black cloud, extending to the very zenith, and spreading with incredible velocity around the seaboard and over the vault of heaven. Even as I gazed, the rising clouds began to encroach on the western firmament, until only a narrow speck of sky, through which the declining sun shone out with a ghastly lustre was seen in that quarter of the horizon. In a moment more the massy curtain of cloud obscured even this opening, and nothing was seen above or around us but the wild and ominous darkness, which, reflected from the unruffled surface of the deep, and struggling with the few faint gleams of light that yet remained, wrapt everything in its own sepulchral gloom. Never shall I forget the expression of my companions’ faces in that death-like obscurity.

The wind, meanwhile, had for the twentieth time within the last hour died away, and we now lay moving unquietly on the troubled surface of the deep. The man-of-war was to be seen in his old position, and as he rose and fell sluggishly in the distant gloom, his white canvass gleaming out with sepulchral effect through the darkness, one might almost have fancied that the shadowy foe was some gigantic spirit ship, hanging like an evil genius upon our quarter. As if awed by the sudden change which had come over the firmament, both vessels had simultaneously ceased firing. The pause on the part of the Englishman, however, was only momentary. The outlines of his shadowy form were soon illuminated by the red glare of his guns, bringing his tall masts out in bold relief against the gloomy back-ground, and shedding a sulphurous hue on everything around. The sullen booming of the guns; the ghastly light flung over the deep; the low unquiet murmurs of the sea; and the darkness gathering more and more terrific over the firmament and reflected back from the sea until it seemed as colorless as ink, made up a scene whose sublimity and horror no pen can describe. The men looked like ghosts, as they flitted to and fro across the decks; and on every countenance was impressed the feelings of the awestruck owner.

“Cannot yonder fellow see the doom that awaits him, unless he gives over firing, and prepares for the squall?” said the old quarter-master.

Even as he spoke a low hollow murmur was heard as if coming out of the deep, which struck a nameless terror into our hearts. It was the sure presage of the coming hurricane. The men were already aloft getting in the sails, but as that murmured sound struck on the skipper’s ear, he shouted,

“Loose and let run—in with every thing—lose not a second—cut with and cut all.”

He had hardly commenced speaking when the dark canopy of clouds on the starboard seaboard lifted up, as if by magic, several degrees from the horizon, displaying a long lurid, yet sickly streak of light, against which the surges rose and fell in bold relief. At the same instant that low wild sound was heard again rising out of the deep; then a hoarse murmur, the like of which I had never listened to before, issued from the lurid seaboard; then an ominous pause of a moment, and only a moment, succeeded; and, while we gazed in mute wonder on each other at these extraordinary phenomena, a deep, smothered rumbling sound was heard, growing rapidly nigher and nigher, and increasing in loudness as it approached; the sea on the starboard horizon became a mass of foam; and, with a rushing noise, the tempest swept down upon us, hissing, roaring, and screaming through our rigging, as if a thousand unearthly beings were riding by upon the blast. The men had scarcely time to see the approaching danger, and hear the captain’s cry,

“Down, for your lives, down—cut all, and slide by the backstays,” before we were lying almost on our beam ends, while the sea flew over us in a dense shower of spray, almost blinding our sight.

“Hard up!” thundered the skipper.

“Ay, ay, sir!”

It was a period of fearful peril. For several moments, during the first force of the squall, we knew not whether our little craft would right again. The mingled roar of the wind and water meanwhile was terrific, and sufficient of themselves to paralyze the stoutest heart. As far as the eye could see, on every hand, the sea was as flat as a table, and covered with foam. The pressure of the hurricane even on our bare poles was tremendous. Every one was forced to grasp a rope, to keep himself from being blown bodily overboard. At length, however, with a painful effort, our gallant craft slowly righted, staggered a moment uncertainly beneath the squall, and then catching the hurricane well aft, went off like a thunderbolt before the gale.

“Thank God!” ejaculated the skipper, drawing a long breath.

“Amen!” was my silent response.

During these few last moments of thrilling suspense, I had forgotten the Englishman altogether, but he now recurred to my thoughts, and I looked eagerly ahead for him. The driving spray, however, shut out everything, except in our immediate vicinity, from our sight. At length, however, my attention was arrested by seeing a tall spar rising over the mist on our lee-bow, and, rushing on to it with inconceivable velocity, we were soon on the weather quarter of the foe. Never shall I forget that sight. The huge ship was lying on his beam-ends, and his mizen-mast had already been cut away in an unsuccessful attempt to right him. The sea rolled over him, as we approached, in cataracts. For an instant we gave ourselves up for lost, as we were driving right on to the unhappy stranger. At that moment, however, we saw his mainmast go over his side. He righted slowly. We were now so near that I could have pitched a biscuit on board.

“Hard up—ha-a-rd!” thundered the Englishman.

“Luff—luff!” roared the skipper, as we drove on to the quarter of the foe.

It was a thrilling moment. For the space of a second we seemed dashing right into the foe, and a stifled shriek burst from every lip; but just as we gave up all for lost, the two vessels shot apart, grazed each other in passing, and then rushed like maddened coursers each on his own course. In less than a quarter of an hour, the foe had vanished in the mists upon our larboard quarter.

* * * * *

THE DERVISH.

AN EASTERN LEGEND.

BY W. FALCONER.

The following little tale was related to me by a Catholic Missionary, (who had resided thirty years at Pondicherry,) on board the Panurge, during a voyage to Mauritius. It is curious to remark how the early traditions of all lands have certain points of resemblance, as this is exactly in the Rip Van Winkle vein, and is an Indian legend as old as the mountain.

Diary.

The Sultan revelled in the gay kiosque, Where Ganges’ waters to the morning rolled, Quaffing the snow-cool wine from cups of gold; A humble Dervish prayed in the lone mosque— “Prophet of God!” with fervor deep, he cried, “Grant me a token that my prayer is heard!” He raised his eye, and lo! a lovely bird Upon a pillar’s marble crown he spied; No fairer warbler, from the Swerga-bowers, E’er bathed in dews of paler earthly flowers, The light of Aden on its green wings bringing; Still, as he gazed, its colors richer grew— At length, through morn’s fresh glades, away it flew, Leaving the lone mosque with its music ringing.

The Dervish followed over mount and plain, The spirit-bird still flitting on before him, Th’ hour-numbering sun unheeded speeding o’er him— He was all ear to drink its gushing strain. A vain pursuit!—scarce on the bough alighted, On, on it glanced, to be afresh pursued, The pilgrim’s courage glowing unsubdued, His soul on fire—his panting heart delighted! But where the sunset’s heav’n-unfolding flood Streams through the columns of the Banian wood, Alas! ’tis melting from his eager eye, Fading away with the quick fading beams— A lovely phantom from the Land of Dreams— Gone, as it came, to bowers beyond the sky.

’Neath dreamy twilight’s twinkling, dew-fed lamp, He stretched his weary limbs along the moss Under the Banian’s shade, and mourned the loss Of the sweet-vision on his night-couch damp, Yet slept at length, nor waked till dewy morn Closed the full stars and oped the infant buds, ’Rousing the warblers of the Indian woods: But his bright bird was gone, and he is lorn! Yet prays, and in a fountain’s cooling waves, With large ablutions, his hot brow he laves, Resumes his staff, and seeks his humble home— A weary journey—days and months speed by Ere he hath reached that mountain summit high, The emerald pillar of the sapphire dome

Amid whose rocks his little chapel stood: But lo! what vision bursts upon his gaze! Domes, spires and churches, ’neath the sunset rays, Gleaming ’mid many a green and palmy wood. The wayward Genii, he remembered, loved To weave such cities of the filmy light. Begun and finished in a single night; But still his wonder grew, as lost he roved Through streets and squares built of substantial stone, Where late the camel-herds were browsing lone, And gleamed the crescent from the minaret. Was he awake?—the crowd around him spoke A strange, rough tongue—new wonders on him broke, And wonder filled the eyes of all he met.

A Fakir passed. Of him he wildly asks Who, what, and where he is? With wondering smile, Answers the Moslem, “From a northern isle, Whose iron-coast a frozen girdle clasps, Came Islam’s foes, and this rich city grand Is the creation of the Infidel— The haughty lords of radiant Indian land— A tale most sad for Moslem lips to tell!” A hundred years had fled since he had chased The spirit-bird, swift as a dream effaced; And that sweet warbler was a sainted sprite, Sent from its rest, to lead so good a man To Christian light—for so the legend ran Which cheered my vigil on the ocean bright.

* * * * *

A FEW WORDS ON SECRET WRITING.

BY EDGAR A. POE.