University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
THE `LONG TOM.'

The merchantman had, indeed, struck her flag to the corvette, as if despairing
further of any successful aid from the privateer. The latter, nevertheless,
continued to pour the heavy fire from her `Long Tom,' into the Englishman,
who although within reach, with his shot, of the ship, was yet too
far distant from the privateer to do her any injury. When it was seen that
the merchant vessel had really lowered her flag, there was a general exclamation
of sympathetic indignation from the small party with whom we have been
watching the progress of the chase.

`The affair is now up,' said the Colonel, with a countenance of deep sorrow
and vexation. `The poor people, on board there, instead of going in safety
into port to meet their friends, are to be borne over the sea again to Halifax or
England as prisoners.'

`Oh, how cruel, that men can be such enemies to each other,' exclaimed
Miss Hood.

`It is, however, the chance of war,' added the Colonel. `They risked their
lives and liberty, by venturing forth upon the ocean, knowing that it was covered
with the enemie's cruisers. They have met with a fate they must have
been looking for daily. But my heart bleeds for them one and all.'

`And if dear Clara Forrest and her father should be on board,' cried Mary,
clasping her hands together and turning pale with the thought.

`God forbid,' responded the Colonel, heartily. `But there is no hope. But
see the schooner. She is bearing down for the merchantman.'

`She will soon be under the Englisnman's fire if she continues on in this
course,' said Henry, `How fearfully exciting. The two vessels are now converging
to a focus which is the ship.'

`The corvette is standing on to take possession of the prize,' remarked
Hood with deep interest as he surveyed the new movements of the vessels,
and the schooner seems trying to cut her off.'

`She has ceased firing, also,' exclaimed Henry.

`And the corvette, also. But she is only reserving her fire till the rash
privateersman comes within full range. Mark me, Hebert, in less than ten
minutes we shall see that privateer either sunk or blown into the air. She is
the boldest in her movements of any thing I ever saw on the water. The man
who commands her is either as brave as a lion or a mad-man! But where is
Hebert?' suddenly exclaimed Colonel Hood, looking round and finding him
gone; for the three had been too deeply interested in what was going on upon
the water to notice his disappearance, which had taken place as soon as he
saw the merchantman lower her colors.

There he is, sir,' cried Miss Hood. `See. Is he not launching the boat.'
And she pointed to a small pier about a furlong from the villa. There they
saw Hebert in a boat and evidently, from his gestures trying to prevail upon

two or three men, who was standing by, to get into the boat with him. But
they refused, and he pushed off alone and with two oars began to row rapidly
from the shore in the direction of the vessels. When Mary saw this she would
have yielded to her first impulse and hastened to detain him. But she restrained
feelings which she felt would displease her father; but covering her
face with her hands she stood trembling and praying for his safety.'

`He is mad,' cried Colonel Hood, after the first emotions of surprise. `The
boy is mad. What can be his motive?'

`I cannot conceive, sir. He is pulling for the merchantman. Can he hope
to do any thing to save her?'

`He is mad, I tell you. He is —. Well, let him go. A cannon-ball
through his body would help him, I dare say.'

`Oh, father. You forget that he is your nephew,' said Mary. `Cannot you
send some one to bid him return?'

`No, let him go. Let us wait and see the end of it.'

`But he will be killed.'

`No danger, not a bit. He never'll die on the water or by a cannon ball.
I fear he'll live to give some honest hangman trouble some day.'

Miss Hood made no reply, but after a moment's longer stay in the cupola
she descended to her room, where she could not only give full vent to her
feelings, but, also watch with tearful eyes and a throbbing heart the dangerous
progress of her lover in the direction of the belligerent vessels.

The little boat took its solitary way swiftly over the waters; but as it farther
left the land its course became more northwardly and at length strait for the
privateer, leaving the ship on the right. Colonel Hood and Henry watched
it closely with their glasses. Hebert could be distinctly seen seated upon the
centre thwart of the boat pulling strongly and steadily, at intervals turning his
face to see how the bows of his boat were directed. The schooner in the
meanwhile was standing down under press of sail in a direction that would by
and by intercept him, and which would bring her between the ship and corvette.
At length they saw him reach the privateer and be taken on board
while his boat was dropped astern. Five minutes afterwards the schooner had
run so far southwardly as to set between the merchantman and corvette, and
for a moment all these vessels lay in a direct line as seen from the cupola, the
schooner in the middle. Here she threw her foretopsail to the mast and hove
to, and opened her fire upon the corvette, who was standing towards her.

`Never was such a bold and daring thing done before,' exclaimed Colonel
Hood, with surprise and admiration. `That Freemantle is more of a free
devil. But he must be a generous fellow to risk so much to protect the weak.'

`There must be some particular motive—some inducement more than usual
which leads him to take such an interest in the safety of this merchantman,'
said Henry.

`It would seem so! or else it is done from mere recklessness. It is impossible
he can save the ship or himself. See the corvette is keeping away instead
of standing strait on. I see. It is because the heavy fire of the privateer's
gun rakes her fore and aft.

`There is another motive, sir,' cried Henry. `Do you not see she has brought
her broad-side round to bear full upon the two vessels in her range.'

`Yes, I see it. She means to pour in—'

His words were interrupted by the sight of a dozen bright flashes from the
side of the ship of war, by clouds of smoke exploding from her ports, and the
heavy thunder of her larboard broadside as she discharged it all at once upon the
schooner and upon her prize.

Colonel Hood's glass was instantly at his eye and watching the effect; for
painful as the associations were with such a scene, he was most deeply interested
in it. Even Henry Hood, the sedentary student gazed upon the combat
with a kindling eye, and a heightened color in his cheeks, the firm lip which
told of the slumbering spirit within, that, under other circumstances of education,
would have led him to eminence in the field or in the naval service.

`The ship has suffered most, sir,' he exclaimed. The schooner is unhurt.'

`Yes, it would seem so. She is so low in the water that the enemy's shot
have passed over her.'

`And the ship on this side has got the whole broadside. See her fore-topmast
shot away and the holes through her sails.'

`Mr. Privateer Freemantle is doing the ship more mischief than benefit.—
They will thank him to stop his interference.'

`See! he is pressing sail again and passing out of the range of the ship.—
And the sloop is wearing to give him another broadside. He is now just clear
of the merchantman's range. He sees his first error. Now Heaven help him
this time, for the Englishman will depress his pieces and aim accurately. Hebert
will now have his heart's content of powder and ball.'

The schooner had made sail again, and passed further south astern of the
ship on the starboard tack, and therefore on a course that brought her nigher
to the ship of war, which was wearing so as to bring her starboard broadside
to bear upon her antagonist. The privateer every quarter of a minute had discharged
her large gun until the corvette began to wear, when there was a silence
as if she intended to receive the broadside quietly. But as the ship of
war wore round, there was a space of time of several seconds, during which
her stern would necessarily be presented to the schooner; for in wearing be
it known to the uninitiated reader, the ship described with her bows the arc of
half a circle, so as to bring the opposite guns in the position which those that
had just been fired, had held. In this manœuvre, her stern would lay for an
instant in range so that a shot well aimed from the schooner would rake her,
that is, go through her lengthwise, the most dangerous and destructive manner
by which a cannon ball can come aboard of a ship.

The Corvette as she began to wear was not half a mile distant from the privateer
which, as we have said, was running free on her starboard tack, laying
her course about East, half South, and moving along five knots by the log, her
four course up! The merchant ship still lay to astern of her, where she had
surrendered about a third of a mile distant nearer the land. The corvette
was in the north eastern board, and the space between her and the ship was
less than a mile in a straight line.

`The disadvantage at which the Englishman would lie, for a few seconds,
in the manœuvre of wearing ships was not likely to escape the observations of
so skillful a seaman as the commander of the privateer had shown himself
to be.

From the cupola, we will now transfer our readers more nearly to the
scenes we are describing, and place them upon the deck of the schooner at
the moment the Corvette begins to fall off, for the purpose of bringing her starboard
guns round.

The schooner is full of men, not less than one hundred being visible within
her bulwarks and aloft. She has ten guns mounted on oaken carriages, five
on a side; men are stationed at each, but the tompions are not out, nor the
ports open, save one, which a shot from the Englishman entered, killing the
captain of the gun, and lodging in the hammock nettings just forward of the
weather gangway. Gangs of men are posted at different points about the vessel
to be ready to obey any order appertaining to the sailing of her; and perfect
order and coolness characterised their conduct. Amidships just forward
of the main hatch, which, in this vessel, situated a few feet farther aft than
usual, was suspended in a massive frame of oak and iron, the enormous gun
whose thunder, at intervals, had given notice of the engagement for many a
league inland and seaward. It was eleven feet in length, painted black and
bound with hoops made of bars of iron. Upon its head near the vent was
painted in red letters `The Conqueror!'

This enormous mass was suspended by chains and cordage, and adjusted in
its position in the nicest manner. It was levelled, and raised or depressed for the
purpose by means of an instrument, similar in shape, and construction to a quadrant.

At every discharge it would rebound in its swing without injury to the
vessel, which, if it had been mounted upon a carriage it would in a little while
have dismembered from the force of the re-action. Its elevation was at about
two and half feet above the deck; but the bulwarks were lowered in front of
it to give free sight at the objects it was directed upon. A dozen men, with
brawny, naked arms and breasts, their faces black with powder, and their features
bearing the stern impress of men in battle, stood around it. Some of
them were passing cartridges the size of a gallon keg, others were rolling
along enormous iron globes too heavy to be lifted by one man; others were
busy at loading, priming, and at the adjusting tackle. Some of the men had
blood on their clothes, and one of them had his arm in a sling; for the broadside
of the corvette had not, as was supposed in the cupola, passed harmlessly
by her; three men having been killed, and five wounded, as well as a shot received
between wind and water that rendered it necessary to keep the pumps
agoing until the hole it made could be stopped. At the head of the gun stood
one who, by his bearing and appearance, was evidently the master spirit of all
this stirring scene. But we will not give to him the ending of a chapter.