University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
THE CRUISER AND PRIVATEER.

This change in the course of the merchant-man was watched with intense
interest by the three persons in the cupola. The British sloop of war was still
standing on her former course and the progress of the two vessels absorbed all
their attention and for a few moments kept them silent.

All at once Mary uttered a quick exclamation, and pointed towards a point
of land that made out from the main about three miles distant.

`A privateer, by the lord Harry!' exclaimed Vincent striking his hands together,
as he saw, on turning his eyes in that direction, a large topsail-schooner
emerging from behind the point and steering so as, by and by, to pass
directly athwart the course of the cruiser! She was one of those large schooners
then much used for privateering, of great length, with exceedingly taunt
masts raking very much aft and carrying enormous breadth of canvass, with a
topsail as square as that of a ship.

`Uncle—the glass a moment.'

Colonel Hood handed it to him; and, after taking a close survey of her as
she went bowling away from the headland which had hitherto concealed her
approach upon the scene, he said with strong enthusiasm, `now we shall have
sport! That privateer will prove a troublesome customer to John Bull. I can
see amidships a gun almost as big as the cruiser's main mast and we may be
sure she will make her speak.'

`Has she no other guns?' asked Colonel Hood.

`She has—three, four—five—she has five ports to a side. She carries ten
guns. But these can do her no service. She will depend on her long Tom;
for you may be assured her skipper means to try and protect the ship.

`Is it possible!' exclaimed Colonel Hood. `Do you really suppose,' he asked
with surprise, taking a second survey of the schooner with his glass, Mary
having voluntarily gone down and got another for Hebert; `do you suppose
that the schooner—so small a craft as she is—has any intention of trying to
cope with the cruiser?'

`She will not be so silly as to risk a fair fight with her port guns, for the
sloop would blow her out of water if the schooner got near enough to use her
broadsides; for it is impossible she can carry guns of such weight of metal as
the sloop must carry. But her long Tom gives her a decided advantage! She
can take a position at her own distance beyond the reach of the cruiser's thirty-two's,
and do her much mischief; precisely as if we had a forty-two planted on
the rock point below the lawn there and we could sink the cruiser before she
could come near enough to make her own guns bear.'

`This, then is this bold little vessels policy. I am more skilled, I confess it,
in military tactics than marine, but I can see how the privateer may do the
chased ship service; but it is a daring act to attempt to step between a sloop
of war and her chase!'

`He who commands her must, without doubt, be a pretty bold fellow, for

for there are few men that would run the risk; for the cruiser might take all
her shot and stand on till she came nigh enough to sink her at a single broadside!'

`I hope not. I most sincerely hope not,' responded Colonel Hood with
energy.

`I know the brave American schooner will be victorious,' said Miss Hood
with patriotic emotion: `but I pray most earnestly that there will be no firing,
for it would be fearful to witness a battle and hear the roar of the cannon.'

`You are too brave a heart, dear coz,' said Hebert meeting her eyes with his
glance of deep devotion, `to fear firing You are, you know, a soldier's
daughter.'

She dropped her gaze before his intense look and blushing, smiled but made
no reply; but this little love-passage, which was unnoticed by the Colonel, told
how intimate and close still love bound her heart to her unworthy lover; for
unworthy he was to wear on his bosom so pure a gem.

`There flies a flag upon the mast of the schooner!' exclaimed the Colonel,
who continued closely to observe the movements of the vessel.

`It is a signal,' cried Hebert. `I will try and make it out. She is telegraphing
the chase. I have a signal book in my room, and will get it.'

On his return from below, there was an answering signal flying at the main
of the merchant vessel. With his glass at his eye he was enabled, after a
little difficulty to make out that of the schooner.

`It reads, Tack ship and pass me to windward.'

`And the other's reply?' inquired both.

`See, cousin, in the book, what the signal is, composed of a blue and white
triangle. No—I recollect now—it stands for `signal notice.”

`Then she will obey it, I hope,' said Col. Hood; for that man in the schooner
seems to know what he is about. The schooner's signal is hauled down,
but there goes another set of them fluttering aloft.'

`Blue-white-red-red! What is it, cousin?' asked Hebert of Miss Hood,
who held the signal book open before her.

`Steer W.N.W. half N. after tacking!'

`There flies the acknowledgment from the ship again. Now it is hauled
down and--see up goes a set of fresh signals instead—five of them. Now,
Mary, display your nautical learning!'

`What are the colors of the signals, father?'

`Hebert must tell you, for they flutter too much for my eye to fasten upon
them, though I have a most excellent glass!'

`The signal is red-white-red-blue-white!'

`Was running for the inner passage—but would thank you for a pilot,' was
the words of the rejoinder, which, with Hebert's help, she at length was enabled
to make out and put together!

`That was then his object in putting about, when he found that he was likely
to be cut off from the main channel, and running so far on this tack!' said
Vincent. `I could not for the life of me divine his purpose in coming this way
unless it was to run his ship dead ashore! I had no idea that a ship of her
burden would ever think of taking the inner channel by the point.'

`He could think of no other chance of getting away from his enemy: for
the sloop could not certainly follow him where it would be doubtful whether
he could pass; he would only ground his vessel at last. The merchant captain
has shown judgment, Hebert.'

`There is no doubt he is doing his best. There must be water enough for
him, or the schooner would not have directed him to try the channel. As she
has just come through it, she probably knows what water there is; and now it
is fortunately near high water.'

`Where can that schooner have come from, so suddenly?' inquired Miss

Hood as she watched the winged life-like thing as it kept on her swift way
from the land, signalizing with the chase as she went.

`It is probable she was lying at anchor under some of the islands in the
outer harbor, and on seeing the cruiser had weighed, to watch her motions;
when discovering the ship next and thus divining her object she took the
inner channel to reach the place of junction first.'

`This is probable. When I found the ship was likely to be cut off,' said
Colonel Hood, `I was wishing that some armed ship was in Boston harbor
that I might send an express to convey information to her of the merchantman's
peril; but I knew all were at sea; and the idea of a privateer never occurred
to me. Besides I knew not any were in the neighborhood; moreover, I should
expect a privateer to try and take the ship herself rather than protect her; for
I believe they are most of them arrant rogues. And when this war ends.
they will have so cleverly got their hand in in plundering vessels, that they
will turn from privateersmen to piratemen.'

`They never capture only British vessels, uncle. But here, the ship tacks
and now steers in the direction she was signalized to, with the wind nearly
aft again. There go her starboard studding-sails out again and she squares
away bravely. If ever I wished a vessel to get out of a scrape it is that one.'

`And look. What is that dark object on the water near the schooner? Is
it a boat?' asked the Colonel with the glass still at his eye.

`Yes. Give me that privateersman's hand in my grasp for a capital fellow.
He has complied with the request of the Captain of the ship and that is
his boat putting off with a pilot.'

`Do you see the boat, Mary?' said the Colonel, giving her the telescope.
`With the unaided eye it looks no bigger than a hyphen in that signal book.'

`I see it, air, and it seems to be filled with men.'

`They are the oarsmen. It is a six-oared cutter and is pulling so as to meet
the ship as she comes up towards the head-land.'

`If that schooner saves the merchantman, I will never think less than honorably
of all privateersmen henceforward!'

The position of the three vessels in reference to each other, was now intensely
interesting.

The cruiser without taking the least notice of the privateer was standing on
the starboard tack as from the first, close hauled and steering strait for the ship
with a dogged perseverance of purpose. The ship was crowding all sail to
reach the Head and enter the inner channel where she knew the cruiser could
not follow her; and which she seemed likely to reach unless the frigate should
put her helm up, drop off four points and try to cut her off from the head by
passing between two islands, but the schooner was running direct for the pass
between the two islands, and to reach the merchantman the privateer would
first have to be encountered. The distance from the cruiser to the merchantship
in a right line was about three miles, and from the cruiser to the cutter
about four across the island, and from the merchantman to the schooner about
the same distance, the three vessels in their positions forming nearly a right
angle triangle, the schooner in the north west angle, the cruiser in the north
cast, the merchantman in the south west; and the wind six knot from the S. S.
E., the cruiser being on her starboard tack, the privateer on her larboard laying
jammed to the wind, and the ship nearly dead before it.

It is at this period while all three vessels are gradually shortening their distances
one from the other, that we open the story in the first chapter with a
gun from the frigate, which when within three miles of the merchantman, she
fired across her bows as a signal for her to heave to, and taking no notice of
the schooner that was swooping down upon her from betwen the islands. The
shot which fell short was not regarded by the merchant-man, which stood standing
on as if placing confidence in the demonstrations of the warlike little vessel
to create a diversion in her favor. The gun from the frigate was now replied
to by a shot from the forty-four on board the privateer, which awakened

John Bull to the considerations of a new enemy whom he had not before taken
into consideration, considering doubtless the merchant-man as his capture.—
Recovering from his surprise, he returned it with a broadside for he was as he
steered, in the very position to rake the privateer; but every shot fell far short
and he had the mortification to see the forty-four come thundering aboard of
him with a force that made his frigate tremble from truck to kelson, and spread
death and devastation around.