University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

It has been already explained to the reader,
that there was something threatening in the appearance
of the weather to create serious forebodings
of evil in the breast of a seaman. When
removed from the shadows of the cliffs, the night
was not so dark but objects could be discerned
at some little distance, and in the eastern horizon
there was a streak of fearful light impending
over the gloomy waters, in which the swelling
outline formed by the rising waves, was becoming
each moment more distinct, and consequently
more alarming. Several dark clouds overhung
the vessel, whose towering masts apparently
propped the black vapour, while a few stars
were seen twinkling, with a sickly flame, in the
streak of clear sky that skirted the ocean. Still,
light currents of air, occasionally, swept across
the bay, bringing with them the fresh odour
from the shore, but their flitting irregularity too
surely foretold them to be the expiring breath of
the land breeze. The roaring of the surf, as it

rolled on the margin of the bay, produced a dull,
monotonous sound, that was only interrupted, at
times, by a hollow bellowing, as a larger wave
than usual broke violently against some cavity in
the rocks. Every thing, in short, united to render
the scene gloomy and portentous, without
creating instant terror, for the ship rose easily on
the long billows, without even straightening the
heavy cable that held her to her anchor.

The higher officers were collected around the
capstern, engaged in earnest discourse about their
situation and prospects, while some of the oldest
and most favoured seamen would extend their
short walk to the hallowed precincts of the
quarter-deck, to catch, with greedy ears, the opinions
that fell from their superiors. Numberless
were the uneasy glances that were thrown from
both officers and men at their commander and the
pilot, who still continued their secret communion
in a distant part of the vessel. Once, an ungovernable
curiosity, or the heedlessness of his
years, led one of the youthful midshipmen near
them, but a stern rebuke from his captain sent the
boy, abashed and cowering, to hide his mortification
among his fellows. This reprimand was
received by the elder officers as an intimation that
the consultation which they beheld, was to be
strictly inviolate; and, though it by no means
suppressed the repeated expressions of their impatience,
it effectually prevented an interruption
to the communications, which all thought were
unreasonably protracted for the occasion.

“This is no time to be talking over bearings
and distances,” observed the officer next in rank
to Griffith. “But we should call the hands up,
and try to kedge her off while the sea will suffer
a boat to live.”

“'Twould be a tedious and bootless job to attempt

to warp a ship for miles against a head-beating
sea,” returned the first lieutenant; “but
the land-breeze yet flutters aloft, and if our light
sails would draw, with the aid of this ebb tide we
might be able to shove her from the shore.”

“Hail the tops, Griffith,” said the other, “and
ask if they feel the air move; 'twill be a hint at
least to set the old man and that lubberly pilot in
motion.”

Griffith laughed, as he complied with the request,
and when he received the customary reply
to his call, he demanded, in a loud voice—

“Which way have you the wind, aloft?”

“We feel a light cat's-paw, now and then, from
the land,” returned the sturdy captain of the top;
“but our topsail hangs in the clewlines, sir, without
winking.”

Captain Munson and his companion suspended
their discourse, while this question and answer
were exchanged, and then resumed their dialogue
as earnestly as if it had received no interruption.

“If it did wink, the hint would be lost on our
betters,” said the officer of the marines, whose
ignorance of seamanship added greatly to his
perception of the danger, but who, from pure
idleness, made more jokes than any other man in
the ship. “That pilot will not receive a delicate
intimation through his ears, Mr. Griffith; suppose
you try him by the nose.”

“Faith, there was a flash of gunpowder between
us in the barge,” returned the first lieutenant,
“and he does not seem a man to stomach
such hints as you advise. Although he looks so
meek and quiet, I doubt whether he has paid much
attention to the book of Job.”

“Why should he!” exclaimed the chaplain,
whose apprehensions at least equalled those of the
marine, and with a much more disheartening effect;

“I'm sure it would have been a great waste of
time; there are so many charts of the coast, and
books on the navigation of these seas, for him to
study, that I sincerely hope he has been much
better employed.”

A loud laugh was created at this speech, among
the listeners, and it apparently produced the effect
that was so long anxiously desired, by putting
an end to the mysterious conference between
their captain and the pilot. As the former came
forward towards his expecting crew, he said, in
the composed, steady manner, that formed the
principal trait in his character—

“Get the anchor, Mr. Griffith, and make sail
on the ship; the hour has arrived when we must
be moving.”

The cheerful “ay! ay! sir!” of the young
lieutenant was hardly uttered, before the cries of
half a dozen midshipmen were heard summoning
the boatswain and his mates to their duty.

There was a general movement in the living
masses that clustered around the mainmast, on
the booms, and in the gangways, though their
habits of discipline held the crew a moment longer
in suspense. The silence was first broken by
the sounds of the boatswain's whistle, followed
by the hoarse cry of “all hands, up anchor,
ahoy!”—the former rising on the night air,
from its first low, mellow notes, to a piercing
shrillness, that again gradually died away on the
waters; and the latter, bellowing through every
cranny of the ship, like the hollow murmurs of
distant thunder.

The change produced by this customary
summons was magical. Human beings sprung
out from between the guns, rushed up the
hatches, threw themselves with careless activity
from the booms, and gathered from every quarter

so rapidly, that, in an instant, the deck of the
frigate was alive with men. The profound silence,
that had hitherto been only interrupted by
the low dialogue of the officers, was now exchanged
for the stern orders of the lieutenants,
mingled with the shriller cries of the midshipmen,
and the hoarse bawling of the boatswain's crew,
rising above the tumult of preparation and general
bustle.

The captain and the pilot alone remained passive,
in this scene of general exertion; for their
apprehensions had even stimulated that class of
officers which is called “idlers,” to attempt
something, though frequently reminded by their
more experienced messmates, that they retarded,
instead of forwarded, the duty of the vessel.
The bustle, however, gradually ceased, and in a
few minutes the same silence pervaded the ship as
before.

“We are brought-to, sir,” said Griffith, who
stood overlooking the scene, holding in one hand
a short speaking trumpet, and grasping, with the
other, one of the shrouds of the ship, to steady
himself in the position he had taken on a gun.

“Heave round, sir,” was the calm reply.

“Heave round!” repeated Griffith, aloud.

“Heave round!” echoed a dozen eager voices
at once, and the lively strains of a fife struck up
a brisk air, to enliven the gloomy scene. The
capstern was instantly set in motion, and the
measured tread of the seamen was heard, as they
stamped the deck in the circle of their march.
For a few minutes, no other sounds were heard,
if we except the voice of an officer, occasionally,
cheering the sailors, when it was announced that
they “were short,” or, in other words, that the
ship was nearly over her anchor.

“Heave and pall,” cried Griffith; when the

quavering notes of the whistle were again succeeded
by a general stillness in the vessel.

“What is to be done now, sir?” continued the
lieutenant; “shall we trip the anchor? There
seems not a breath of air, and as the tide runs
slack, I doubt whether the sea do not heave the
ship ashore.”

There was so much obvious truth in this conjecture,
that all eyes turned from the light and
animation afforded by the decks of the frigate, to
look abroad on the waters, in a vain desire to
pierce the darkness, as if to read the fate of their
apparently devoted ship, from the aspect of nature.

“I leave all to the pilot,” said the captain,
after he had stood a short time by the side of
Griffith, anxiously studying the heavens and the
ocean. “What say you, Mr. Gray?”

The man who was, thus, first addressed by
name, was leaning over the bulwarks, with his
eyes bent in the same direction as the others;
but as he answered, he turned his face towards
the speaker, and the light from the deck fell full
upon his quiet features, which exhibited a calmness
bordering on the supernatural, considering
his station and responsibility.

“There is much to fear from this heavy ground-swell,”
he said, in the same unmoved tones as
before; “but there is certain destruction to us,
if the gale that is brewing in the east, finds us
waiting its fury in this wild anchorage. All the
hemp that was ever spun into cordage would not
hold a ship an hour, chafing on these rocks, with
a north-easter pouring its fury on her. If the
powers of man can compass it, gentlemen, we
must get an offing, and that speedily.”

“You say no more, sir, than the youngest boy

in the ship can see for himself,” said Griffith—
“ha! here comes the schooner!”

The dashing of the long sweeps in the water,
was now plainly audible, and the little Ariel was
seen through the gloom, moving heavily under
their inadequate impulse. As she passed slowly
under the stern of the frigate, the cheerful voice
of Barnstable was first heard, opening the communications
between them.

“Here's a night for spectacles, Captain Munson!”
he cried; “but I thought I heard your
fife, sir; I trust in God, you do not mean to ride
it out here till morning?”

“I like the birth as little as yourself, Mr.
Barnstable,” returned the veteran seaman, in his
calm manner, in which anxiety was however beginning
to grow evident. “We are short, but
are afraid to let go our hold of the bottom, lest
the sea cast us ashore. How make you out
the wind?”

“Wind!” echoed the other; “there is not
enough to blow a lady's curl aside. If you wait,
sir, till the land breeze fill your sails, you will
wait another moon, I believe. I've got my egg-shell
out of that nest of gray-caps, but how it
has been done in the dark, a better man than
myself must explain.”

“Take your directions from the pilot, Mr.
Barnstable,” returned his commanding officer,
“and follow them strictly and to the letter.”

A death-like silence, in both vessels, succeeded
this order, for all seemed to listen eagerly to
catch the words that fell from the man, on whom,
all now felt, depended their only hopes for safety.
A short time was suffered to elapse, before his
voice was heard, in the same low, but distinct
tones as before—

“Your sweeps will soon be of no service to

you,” he said, “against the sea that begins to
heave in; but your light sails will help them to
get you out. So long as you can head east-and-by-north,
you are doing well, and you can stand
on till you open the light from that northern
headland, when you can heave to, and fire a
gun; but if, as I dread, you are struck aback,
before you open the light, you may trust to your
lead on the larboard tack, but beware, with your
head to the southward, for no lead will serve you
there.”

“I can walk over the same ground on one
tack as on the other,” said Barnstable, “and
make both legs of a length.”

“It will not do,” returned the pilot. “If you
fall off a point to starboard from east-and-by-north,
in going large, you will find both rocks
and points of shoals to bring you up; and beware,
as I tell you, of the starboard tack.”

“And how shall I find my way; you will let
me trust to neither time, lead, nor log.”

“You must trust to a quick eye and a ready
hand. The breakers only will show you the
dangers, when you are not able to make out the
bearings of the land. Tack in season, sir, and
don't spare the lead, when you head to port.”

“Ay, ay,” returned Barnstable, in a low, muttering
voice. “This is a sort of blind navigation
with a vengeance, and all for no purpose that
I can see—see! damme, eyesight is of about as
much use now, as a man's nose would be in reading
the bible.”

“Softly, softly, Mr. Barnstable,” interrupted
his commander, for such was the anxious stillness
in both vessels, that even the rattling of the
schooner's rigging was heard, as she rolled in the
trough of the sea—“the duty on which Congress

has sent us must be performed at the hazard of
our lives.”

“I don't mind my life, Captain Munson,” said
Barnstable; “but there is a great want of conscience
in trusting a vessel in such a place as this.
However, it is a time to do, and not to talk. But
if there be such danger to an easy draught of
water, what will become of the frigate? had I
not better play jackall, and try and feel the way
for you.”

“I thank you,” said the pilot; “the offer is
generous, but would avail us nothing. I have
the advantage of knowing the ground well, and
must trust to my memory and God's good favour.
Make sail, make sail, sir, and if you succeed, we
will venture to break ground.”

The order was promptly obeyed, and in a very
short time, the Ariel was covered with canvass.
Though no air was perceptible on the decks of
the frigate, the little schooner was so light, that
she succeeded in stemming her way over the rising
waves, aided a little by the tide, and in a few
minutes, her low hull was just discernible in the
streak of light along the horizon; the dark outline
of her sails rising above the sea, until their
fanciful summits were lost in the shadows of the
clouds.

Griffith had listened to the foregoing dialogue,
like the rest of the junior officers, in profound silence;
but when the Ariel began to grow indistinct
to the eye, he jumped lightly from the gun
to the deck, and cried—

“She slips off, like a vessel from the stocks!
shall I trip the anchor, sir, and follow?”

“We have no choice,” replied his captain.
“You hear the question, Mr. Gray? shall we let
go the bottom?”

“It must be done, Captain Munson; we may

want more than the rest of this tide to get us to a
place of safety,” said the pilot; “I would give
five years from a life, that I know will be short,
if the ship lay one mile further seaward.”

This remark was unheard by all, excepting the
commander of the frigate, who again walked
aside with the pilot, where they resumed their
mysterious communications. The words of assent
were no sooner uttered, however, than Griffith
gave forth from his trumpet the command to
“heave away!” Again the strains of the fife
were followed by the tread of the men at the
capstern. At the same time that the anchor was
heaving up, the sails were loosened from the
yards, and opened to invite the breeze. In effecting
this duty, orders were thundered through the
trumpet of the first lieutenant, and executed with
the rapidity of thought. Men were to be seen,
like spots in the dim light from the heavens, lying
on every yard, or hanging as in air, while strange
cries were heard issuing from every part of the
rigging, and each spar of the vessel. “Ready
the fore-royal,” cried a shrill voice, as if from the
clouds; “ready the fore yard,” uttered the hoarse
tones of a seaman beneath him; “all ready aft,
sir,” cried a third, from another quarter; and in
a few moments, the order was given to “let fall.”

The little light which fell from the sky, was
now excluded by the falling canvass, and a deeper
gloom was cast athwart the decks of the ship,
that served to render the brilliancy of the lanterns
even vivid, while it gave to objects outboard
a more appalling and dreary appearance
than before.

Every individual, excepting the commander
and his associate, was now earnestly engaged in
getting the ship under way. The sounds of
“we're away,” were repeated by a burst from

fifty voices, and the rapid evolutions of the capstern
announced that nothing but the weight of
the anchor was to be lifted. The howling of
cordage, the rattling of blocks, blended with the
shrill calls of the boatswain and his mates, succeeded;
and though to a landsman all would have
appeared confusion and hurry, long practice and
strict discipline enabled the crew to exhibit their
ship under a cloud of canvass, from the deck to
the trucks, in less time than we have consumed in
relating it.

For a few minutes, the officers were not disappointed
by the result, for though the heavy sails
flapped lazily against the masts, the light duck
on the loftier spars swelled outwardly, and the
ship began sensibly to yield to their influence.

“She travels! she travels!” exclaimed Griffith,
joyously; “ah! the hussy! she has as much
antipathy to the land as any fish that swims! it
blows a little gale aloft, yet!”

“We feel its dying breath,” said the pilot, in
low, soothing tones, but in a manner so sudden as
to startle Griffith, at whose elbow they were unexpectedly
uttered. “Let us forget, young man,
every thing but the number of lives that depend,
this night, on your exertions and my knowledge.”

“If you be but half as able to exhibit the one,
as I am willing to make the other, we shall do
well,” returned the lieutenant, in the same tone.
“Remember, whatever may be your feelings, that
we are on an enemy's coast, and love it not
enough to wish to lay our bones there.”

With this brief explanation, they separated,
the vessel requiring the constant and close attention
of the officer to her movements.

The exultation produced in the crew by the
progress of their ship through the water, was of
short duration; for the breeze that had seemed to

await their motions, after forcing the vessel for a
quarter of a mile, fluttered for a few minutes
amid their light canvass, and then left them entirely.
The quarter-master, whose duty it was
to superintend the helm, soon announced that he
was losing the command of the vessel, as she was
no longer obedient to her rudder. This ungrateful
intelligence was promptly communicated to
his commander, by Griffith, who suggested the
propriety of again dropping an anchor.

“I refer you to Mr. Gray,” returned the captain;
“he is the pilot, sir, and with him rests the
safety of the vessel.”

“Pilots sometimes lose ships, as well as save
them,” said Griffith; “know you the man well,
Captain Munson, who holds all our lives in his
keeping, and so coolly as if he cared but little for
the venture?”

“Mr. Griffith, I do know him; he is, in my
opinion, both competent and faithful. Thus
much I tell you, to relieve your anxiety; more
you must not ask;—but is there not a shift of
wind?”

“God forbid!” exclaimed his lieutenant; “if
that north-easter catches us within the shoals,
our case will be desperate indeed!”

The heavy rolling of the vessel caused an occasional
expansion, and as sudden a re-action, in
their sails, which left the oldest seamen in the
ship in doubt which way the currents of air were
passing, or whether there existed any that were
not created by the flapping of their own canvass.
The head of the ship, however, began to fall off
from the sea, and notwithstanding the darkness,
it soon became apparent that she was driving in,
bodily, towards the shore.

During these few minutes of gloomy doubt,
Griffith, by one of those sudden revulsions of the

mind, that connect the opposite extremes of feeling,
lost his animated anxiety, and relapsed into
the listless apathy that so often came over him,
even in the most critical moments of trial and
danger. He was standing, with one elbow resting
on the capstern, shading his eyes from the
light of the battle-lantern that stood near him,
with one hand, when he felt a gentle pressure of
the other, that recalled his recollection. Looking
affectionately, though still recklessly, at the
boy who stood at his side, he said—

“Dull music, Mr. Merry.”

“So dull, sir, that I can't dance to it,” returned
the midshipman. “Nor do I believe there is
a man in the ship who would not rather hear
`The girl I left behind me,' than those execrable
sounds.”

“What sounds, boy! The ship is as quiet as
the quaker meeting in the Jerseys, before your
good old grandfather used to break the charm of
silence with his sonorous voice.”

“Ah! laugh at my peaceable blood, if thou
wilt, Mr. Griffith,” said the arch youngster; “but
remember, there is a mixture of it in all sorts of
veins. I wish I could hear one of the old gentleman's
chants now, sir; I could always sleep to
them, like a gull in a surf. But he that sleeps to
night, with that lullaby, will make a nap of it.”

“Sounds! I hear no sounds, boy, but the
flapping aloft; even that pilot, who struts the
quarter-deck like an admiral, has nothing to
say.”

“Is not that a sound to open a seaman's ear?”

“It is in truth a heavy roll of the surf, lad, but
the night air carries it heavily to our ears. Know
you not the sounds of the surf yet, younker?”

“I know it too well, Mr. Griffith, and do not

wish to know it better. How fast are we tumbling
in towards that surf, sir?”

“I think we hold our own,” said Griffith, rousing
again; “though we had better anchor.
Luff, fellow, luff, you are broadside to the sea!”

The man at the wheel repeated his former intelligence,
adding a suggestion that he thought
the ship “was gathering stern-way.”

“Haul up your courses, Mr. Griffith,” said
Captain Munson, “and let us feel the wind.”

The rattling of the blocks was soon heard, and
the enormous sheets of canvass that hung from
the lower yards were instantly suspended “in the
brails.” When this change was effected, all on
board stood silent and breathless, as if expecting
to learn their fate by the result. Several contradictory
opinions were, at length, hazarded among
the officers, when Griffith seized a candle from
the lantern, and springing on one of the guns,
held it on high, exposed to the action of the air.
The little flame waved, with uncertain glimmering,
for a moment, and then burned steadily, in a
line with the masts. Griffith was about to lower
his extended arm, when, feeling a slight sensation
of coolness on his hand, he paused, and the light
turned slowly towards the land, flared, flickered,
and finally deserted the wick.

“Lose not a moment, Mr. Griffith,” cried the
pilot, aloud; “clew up and furl every thing but
your three topsails, and let them be double-reefed.
Now is the time to fulfil your promise.”

The young man paused one moment, in astonishment,
as the clear, distinct tones of the stranger
struck his ears so unexpectedly; but turning
his eyes to seaward, he sprang on the deck, and
proceeded to obey the order, as if life and death
depended on his despatch.