University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
The Little Cloud.

The sail which had so disappointed the
young girl, by displaying the majestic
outline of a ship, instead of proving to be
the little fishing sloop, now gradually
lifted above the horizon-line, and showed
her masts down to her deck, May was
sufficiently skilled, fisher's daughter as
she was, to see that she was a very large
ship, and that her sails had that square,
heavy look characteristic of a man-of-war;
for she had seen, during the existing
war, more than one English and
American frigate sail past the harbor;
and could distinguish them from the
more frequent and less imposing merchant
vessels, even at three leagues off.

The course of the strange sail had
been, when first seen by her, direct for
the cliff; but she had shortly after hauled
her wind and now seemed to be stretching
away eastward and a little northwardly.
May continued to watch her
until she could plainly discern the whole
of her dark hull. She strained her eyes
to see if she could distinguish the black
and white squares of ports; but the distance
was too great. She also strove to
make out the nation of the colours which
she saw flying over her stern.

`It is no doubt an English war-ship,'
she said with a disappointed air. `Ah,
Bonus, your master comes not. I fear
that he may have fallen into the hand of
the enemy; though they have never yet
harmed fishermen. My poor father!—
What can have become of him. If by
to-morrow morning he does not return,'
she said anxiously, `I will take Tom
with me and sail over to Portland in
search of him! The ship has altered her
course again! She is now standing directly
in for the bay! No; I see the
reason of this seeming change. The
wind has suddenly gone down, and so she
is becalmed; her bow has swung round
and points this way. Not a breath ruffles
the ocean, which but a moment ago
was rippled like the back of a mackerel!
How calm the air is even here upon this
eminence!'

The ship had indeed became stationery;
the light wind which a few moments
before had been wafting her along at the
rate of four miles an hour having suddenly
died away, leaving the surface of
the sea as polished and smooth as if an
ocean of molten steel. The sun, which
was within an hour and a half of its going
down, reflected from the water with dazzling
splendor.

`A ship, May!' said the shrill voice of
the dwarf close to her shoulder. `A warship!'

`Left your work again, Tom!'

`I'ant afraid o'father now. It ant the
sloop, but a reg'lar war-ship. I can see
the big guns sticking out.'

`You have better eyes than I have,
Tommy. I know that it must be a frigate,
but I can't see that she has ports at
this distance. She is full six miles off.'

`I see 'em,' answered the dwarf, fixing
his large bright eye upon the vessel.—
`See that smoke and fire!'

`A flash!' cried May with surprise.

`And a loud gun too, May,' he cried,
as the deep boom of a heavy cannon
reached their ears, while the frigate was

half hidden for a minute in a cloud of
blue smoke that slowly rolled away to
the south-wind upon the sea.

`They wants a pilot!' said Tom with
emphasis.

`They cannot want one for this little
bay; and they can have no object in
coming in here. Besides, if they had a
pilot, they could not move without wind,
Tom.'

`Wind! There 'll be enough o' that
as soon as they'll want it,' he answered
very positively, and pointed to the south-westward.

`What makes you think there will be
wind, brother? I hope there will be;
for unless there is, father will not reach
home to-night!'

`I hope that he 'll never pass the
scathed pine there agen, sister May!' he
said doggedly.

`I almost believe you would murder
your father, Tom, if you dared!'

`No, no. I wouldn't kill him. That
would be wicked, May, and the devil
would have Tom then sure enough. But
if the winds and blue waves drown him,
Tom wouldn't be to blame!'

`I am sorry you hate him so, Tom!
I shall not love you.'

`He beats me, and calls me a wolf and
a bear, May.'

`He will beat you no more, Tom. He
promised me that.'

`He wont when you are by; but when
you are out o' sight, he half kill Tom.'

`Well, I wont be out of sight, brother!
See, there is another gun.'

How loud it sounds. It is bigger than,
thunder, May.'

`I wonder what they can be firing at,'
she said, with surprise visible upon her
earnest face, as she watched the distant
stranger.

`There 'll be firing and flashin' from
this a-way too, afore long, May,' said
Tom, pointing again to the west, where
a small bluish clay coloured cloud was
suspended low upon the horizon. It was
not larger than three breadths of the sun,
near which its position was. The sun,
moreover, began to show a faint halo of
mist, and to redden as it descended in its
course towards the horizon. `That cloud,
May, 'll grow faster than a mushroom if
you'll just watch it. It is born right out
of the sun, and the sun 'll feed it with
its light, and fill it with lightenin', and
the winds will fill it up with thunder.—
That's where all the wind's gone to now.'

`There is no doubt the cloud enlarges,
and the sun looks angry, Tom, though I
don't agree with you exactly as to the
way the cloud is made up.'

`Afore sun-down, the west 'll be half
covered over with that little blue speck.
It is a reg'lar storm-breeder.'

May knew that her brother's knowledge
in such matters, was better than
her own; for he had little else to do but
to study the sky and the sea, which for
hours he would gaze upon in silence,
seated upon the cliff, or posted upon some
limb which overhung the surges. A
storm excited in him the wildest joy;
while, also, he seemed to have a heart
for the softer features of nature, and to
delight in beauty as well as riot in sublimity.
She knew that his judgment was
to be taken in all matters touching the
weather; that even her father relied upon
him in such cases, more than upon
his own experience.

`If there is to be a blow, I hope the
frigate will get an offing before it comes
on,' said May.

`You do, May. Well, I don't; if she
is an Englisher, I hope she'll go to the
bottom. I don't wish good to the enemy.'

`You should not bear such hatred,
Tom. I shall not love you, if you feel
so. The truly generous spirit cannot recognise
enemies in the hour when danger

menaces them. How rapidly that
cloud enlarges and changes its shape.'

`Yes, it looks now just like a great
black eagle flying over the sea.'

`It looks menacing, and more so now
that the sun has cast over its northern
skirt a lurid red. The sun, too, looks
fiercer every moment. Still, how calm
lies the ocean every where around, as if
in slumber. There is something fearful
in witnessing this silent gathering of the
tempest. There is another gun from the
frigate.'

`Do you want to know what them
guns be fired for, May?' asked Tom,
with a bright, covert light in his eyes.

`I cannot conceive, unless it is for a
pilot.'

`They see the storm-breeder as well
as we. They are becalmed, as you see,
and know that it is a dangerous coast to
be on in a gale. The storm is coming
up from the south and west, and that 'll
make a lee-shore for 'em; so they'll
have to run for some harbour or go to
pieces. They want a pilot to come aboard
to help 'em to get in safe somewhere,
when the storm begins to pipe. Tom's a
dwarf and a fool, and every body hates
Tom, but you, May; but Tom knows
the war-ship is 'fraid o' the gale, and
wants a pilot. They'd take Tom, if he
is a fool.'

Here the poor idiot laughed and chuckled,
as if triumphantly anticipating his
power to save the vessel, foolish as he
was, if he were on board of her; for
there was not a better pilot on the coast
than poor Tom. He knew every shoal
and rock, every sunken reef and dangerous
place as familiarly as the palms
of his two hands.

`Do you think they feel that they are
in such peril, Tom?' she asked earnestly.
`How many noble and brave souls
there are, doubtless, on board that ship!
It would be dreadful if she should be lost.'

`Hear that gun again, May! They
are minnit guns, and minnit guns is
al'ays fired when war-ships is in trouble.
They wants a pilot, in case the storm
should come and catch 'em among the
herrin' ledges. They be in the worst
place they could be put into. If father's
sloop was there, I'd be sure she'd be
wracked, if he didn't know how to pilot
her into the bay!'

`That cloud is advancing up the sky,
and darkening all the west with fearful
rapidity.'

`In less than half an hour we shall see
rare sport, May.'

`You seem to have no human feeling
at times, Tom,' she said angrily. `If it
would please you to see that ship in peril,
it would not please me.'

`Don't frown on poor Tom. Tom love
the war-ship, if May love it!' he said deprecatingly.
`If sister May be mad at
Tom, Tom wish to die.'

`Then do not show such malice, brother.
That ship, as you say, may be in
peril. There is plainly going to be a
heavy blow from the south-west. The
cloud has already darkened the face of
the sun, and casts a shadow like midnight
beneath upon the sea. There they
fire again. It is evident that they think
themselves in a dangerous position, and
are calling for aid from some one of the
fishermen. Something must be done.'

`If father was here, he'd go out to 'em
and stay on board till the storm was
over. `He'd run her safe in here.'

`And why can't you, dear brother?'
she cried with an eloquent expression of
entreaty.

`Me? You ask poor Tom to go and
save a big war-ship? Tom's a dwarf!
They'd hang Tom on the yard-arm soon
as he come on board. They'd throw
Tom into the sea to make the waves be
still! Oh, no! Tom stay 'shore!'

`There is no one but ONE that could

save that ship from her danger!' she said,
her cheek suddenly brightening its roseate
hue: `but I fear that he would
deem it his duty to let her perish—to
leave her to her fate. What my brother
says is true; they might fear to trust
him; and he might, in the malicious caprice
of the moment, wilfully wreck
what I should send him to save. He is
not to be trusted. There is no alternative.
The effort must be made. His LOVE
for me shall now be tested. They still
live in hopes some one will aid them, and
each solemn report of the guns, indicates
their sense of the danger of their condition.
What I do I must do quickly.'

The danger in which the frigate was
placed, was indeed, very imminent.—
She had become becalmed in a sort of
bight of the main-land, with a low point
running out to the east-ward which, if the
wind of the storm should come out of the
south and west as it was threatening to
do, could not be weathered. She was,
as the sailors phrase it, land-locked.—
Her distance from the shore in a direct
line was about four miles, and from the
place from which the young girl and
dwarf were watching her, five miles in
an east by south direction. The coast
was rocky and forbidding, and off the
land at various distances, were several
sunken ledges, intermingled here and
there with a sharp, black rock, looking
like a huge fish lying upon the smooth
surface. The fishing bay, we have described
at the commencement of our
story, was the nighest shelter for the
ship; but as several ridges of sunken
rocks indicated a dangerous entrance, its
passage would not be attempted by a
large ship, without a pilot. The ocean
was perfectly breezeless; lying in profound
repose, as if awaiting the coming
storm. This was advancing up the sky
with appalling blackness. Half the heavens
were covered with a bluish black
canopy, its upper edges curling along the
blue expanse in ashy white fringes, streaming
out straight before the winds of the
upper air. The blackness of darkness
lay upon the sea beneath. Solitary upon
the wide ocean, hung as if in silent terror,
the noble ship; its sails snugly furled,
save two storm-stay-sails; and at ra
pid intervals came from her the loud voice
of her artillery, calling for human aid.