 | CHAPTER II. The Red Rover |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
—“Every day, some sailor's wife,
The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,
Have just our theme of woe.”
Tempest.
“We are safe!” said Wilder, who had stood, amid
the violence of the struggle, with his person firmly
braced against a mast, steadily watching the manner
of their escape. “Thus far, at least, are we safe;
for which may Heaven alone be praised, since no
art of mine could avail us a feather.”
The females had buried their faces in the folds of
the vestments and clothes on which they were sitting;
nor did even the governess raise her countenance,
until twice assured by her companion that the
imminency of the risk was past. Another minute
went by, during which Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude
were rendering their thanksgivings, in a manner and
in words less equivocal than the expression which
had just broken from the lips of the young seaman.
When this grateful duty was performed, they stood
erect, as if emboldened, by the offering, to look their
situation more steadily in the face.
On every side lay the seemingly illimitable waste
of waters. To them, their small and frail tenement
was the world. So long as the ship, sinking and
dangerous as she was, remained beneath them, there
had appeared to be a barrier between their existence
and the ocean. But one minute had deprived them
of even this failing support, and they now found
themselves cast upon the sea in a vessel that might
be likened to one of the bubbles of the element.
Gertrude felt, at that instnat, as though she would
have given half her hopes in life for the mere
sight of that vast and nearly untenanted Continent
along the west, and kept the world of waters to their
limits.
But the rush of emotions that so properly belonged
to their forlorn condition soon subsided, and
their thoughts returned to the study of the means
necessary to their further safety. Wilder had, however,
anticipated these feelings; and, even before
Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude had recovered their recollections,
he was occupied, aided by the ready
hands of the terrified but loquacious Cassandra, in
arranging the contents of the boat in such a manner
as would enable her to move through the element
with the least possible resistance.
“With a well-trimmed ship, and a fair breeze,”
cried our adventurer, cheerfully, so soon as his little
job was ended, “we may yet hope to reach the land
in one day and another night. I have seen the hour
when, in this good launch, I would not have hesitated
to run the length of the American coast, provided”—
“You have forgotten your provided,” said Gertrude,
observing that he hesitated, probably from a
reluctance to express any exception to the opinion,
which might increase the fears of his companions.
“Provided it were two months earlier in the year,”
he added, in a tone of less confidence.
“The season, is, then, against us: It only requires
the greater resolution in ourselves!”
Wilder turned his head to regard the fair speaker,
whose pale and placid countenance, as the moon
silvered her fine features, expressed any thing but
the courage to endure the hardships he so well knew
she was liable to encounter, before they might hope
to gain the Continent. After musing a moment, he
lifted his open hand towards the south-west, and
held its palm some little time to the air of the night.
“Any thing is better than idleness, for people in
of the breeze coming in this quarter; I will be ready
to meet it.”
He then spread his two lug-sails; and, trimming
aft the sheets, placed himself at the helm, like one
who expected his services there might be shortly
needed. The result did not disappoint his expectations.
Ere long, the light canvas of the boat began
to flutter; and then, as he brought the bows in the
proper direction, the little vessel commenced moving
slowly along its blind and watery path.
The wind soon came fresher upon the sails,
heavily charged with the dampness of the hour.
Wilder urged the latter reason as a motive for the
females to seek their rest beneath a little canopy of
tarpaulings, which his foresight had also provided,
and on mattresses he had brought from the ship.
Perceiving that their protector wished to be alone,
Mrs Wyllys and her pupil did as desired; and, in a
few minutes, if not asleep, no one could have told
that any other than our adventurer had possession of
the solitary launch.
The middle hour of the night went by, without
any material change in the prospects of those whose
fate so much depended on the precarious influence
of the weather. The wind had freshened to a smart
breeze; and, by the calculations of Wilder, he had
already moved across many leagues of ocean, directly
in a line for the eastern end of that long and narrow
isle that separates the waters which wash the
shores of Connecticut from those of the open sea.
The minutes flew swiftly by; for the time was propitious,
and the thoughts of the young seaman were
busy with the recollections of a short but adventurous
life. At moments he leaned forward, as if he
would catch the gentle respiration of one who slept
beneath the dark and rude canopy, and as though
he might distinguish the soft breathings of her slumbers
his form fall back into its seat, and his lip curl, or
even move, as he gave inward utterance to the wayward
fancies of his imagination. But at no time,
not even in the midst of his greatest abandonment to
reverie and thought, did he forget the constant, and
nearly instinctive, duties of his station. A rapid
glance at the heavens, an oblique look at the compass,
and an occasional, but more protracted, examination
of the pale face of the melancholy moon,
were the usual directions taken by his practised eyes.
The latter was still in the zenith; and his brow began
again to contract, as he saw that she was shining
through an atmosphere without a haze. He would
have liked better to have seen even those portentous
and watery circles by which she is so often environed,
and which are thought to foretel the tempest,
than the hard and dry medium through which her
beams fell so clear upon the face of the waters.
The humidity with which the breeze had commenced
was also gone; and, in its place, the quick, sensitive
organs of the seaman detected the often grateful,
though at that moment unwelcome, taint of the land.
All these were signs that the airs from the Continent
were about to prevail, and (as he dreaded, from certain
wild-looking, long, narrow clouds, that were
gathering over the western horizon) to prevail with
a power conformable to the turbulent season of the
year.
If any doubt had existed in the mind of Wilder
as to the accuracy of his prognostics, it would have
been solved about the commencement of the morning
watch. At that hour the inconstant breeze began
again to die; and, even before its last breathing
was felt upon the flapping canvas, it was met by
counter currents from the west. Our adventurer saw
at once that the struggle was now truly to commence,
and he made his dispositions accordingly. The
to the mild airs of the south, were reduced to
one third their original size, by double reefs; and
several of the more cumbrous of the remaining articles,
such as were of doubtful use to persons in their
situation, were cast, without pausing to hesitate, into
the sea. Nor was this care without a sufficient object.
The air soon came sighing heavily over the
deep from the north-west, bringing with it the chilling
asperity of the inhospitable regions of the Canadas.
“Ah! well do I know you,” muttered Wilder, as
the first puff of this unwelcome wind struck his sails,
and forced the little boat to bend to its power in
passing; “well do I know you, with your fresh-water
flavour and your smell of the land! Would to
God you had blown your fill upon the lakes, without
coming down to drive many a weary seaman back
upon his wake, and to eke out a voyage, already too
long, by your bitter colds and steady obstinacy!”
“Do you speak?” said Gertrude, half appearing
from beneath her canopy, and then shrinking back,
shivering, into its cover again, as she felt the influence
in the change of air.
“Sleep, Lady, sleep,” he answered, as though he
liked not, at such a moment, to be disturbed by even
her soft and silvery voice.
“Is there new danger?” asked the maiden, stepping
lightly from the mattress, as if she would not
disturb the repose of her governess. “You need not
fear to tell me the worst: I am a soldier's child!”
He pointed to the signs so well comprehended by
himself, but continued silent.
“I feel that the wind is colder than it was,” she
said, “but I see no other change.”
“And do you know whither the boat is going?”
“To the land, I think. You assured us of that,
and I do not believe you would willingly deceive.”
“You do me justice; and, as a proof of it, I will
now tell you that you are mistaken. I know that to
your eyes all points of the compass, on this void,
must seem the same; but I cannot thus easily deceive
myself.”
“And we are not sailing for our homes?”
“So far from it, that, should this course continue,
we must cross the whole Atlantic before your eyes
could again see land.”
Gertrude made no reply, but retired, in sorrow, to
the side of her governess. In the mean time, Wilder,
again left to himself, began to consult his compass
and the direction of the wind. Perceiving that
he might approach nearer to the continent of America
by changing the position of the boat, he wore
round, and brought its head as nigh up to the south-west
as the wind would permit.
But there was little hope in this trifling change.
At each minute, the power of the breeze was increasing,
until it soon freshened to a degree that
compelled him to furl his after-sail. The slumbering
ocean was not long in awakening; and, by the time
the launch was snug under a close-reefed fore-sail,
the boat was rising on dark and ever-growing waves,
or sinking into the momentary calm of deep furrows,
whence it rose again, to feel the rapidly increasing
power of the blasts. The dashing of the waters,
and the rushing of the wind, which now began to
sweep heavily across the blue waste, quickly drew
the females to the side of our adventurer. To their
hurried and anxious questions he made considerate
but brief replies, like a man who felt that the time
was far better suited to action than to words.
In this manner the last lingering minutes of the
night went by, loaded with a care that each moment
rendered heavier, and which each successive freshening
of the breeze had a tendency to render doubly
anxious. The day came, only to bestow more distinctness
were looking green and angrily, while, here and
there, large crests of foam were beginning to break
on their summits—the certain evidence that a conflict
betwixt the elements was at hand. Then came
the sun over the ragged margin of the eastern horizon,
climbing slowly into the blue arch above, which lay
clear, chilling, distinct, and entirely without a cloud.
Wilder noted all these changes of the hour with a
closeness that proved how critical he deemed their
case. He seemed rather to consult the signs of the
heavens than to regard the tossings and rushings of
the water, which dashed against the side of his little
vessel in a manner that, to the eyes of his companions,
often appeared to threaten their total destruction.
To the latter he was too much accustomed,
to anticipate the true moment of alarm, though to
less instructed senses it might already seem so dangerous.
It was to him as is the thunder, when compared
to the lightning, in the mind of the philosopher;
or rather he knew, that, if harm might come
from the one on which he floated, its ability to injure
must first be called into action by the power of
the sister element.
“What think you of our case now?” asked Mrs
Wyllys, keeping her look closely fastened on his
countenance, as if she would rather trust its expression,
than even to his words for the answer.
“So long as the wind continues thus, we may yet
hope to keep within the route of ships to and from
the great northern ports; but, if it freshen to a gale,
and the sea begin to break with violence, I doubt the
ability of this boat to lie-to.”
“Then our resource must be in endeavouring to
run before the gale.”
“Then must we scud.”
“What would be our direction, in such an event?”
demanded Gertrude, to whose mind, in the agitation
all idea of places and distances was lost, in the most
inextricable confusion.
“In such an event,” returned our adventurer, regarding
her with a look in which commiseration
and indefinite concern were so singularly mingled,
that her own mild gaze was changed into a timid and
furtive glance, “in such an event, we should be
leaving that land it is so important to reach.”
“What 'em 'ere?” cried Cassandra, whose large
dark eyes were rolling on every side of her, with a
curiosity that no care or sense of danger could extinguish;
“'em berry big fish on a water?”
“It is a boat!” cried Wilder, springing upon a
thwart, to catch a glimpse of a dark object that was
driving on the glittering crest of a wave, within a
hundred fect of the spot where the launch itself was
struggling through the brine. “What ho!—boat,
ahoy!—holloa there!—boat, ahoy!”
The deep breathing of the wind swept by them,
but no human sound responded to his shout. They
had already fallen, between two seas, into a deep
vale of water, where the narrow view extended no
farther than the dark and rolling barriers on either
side.
“Merciful Providence!” exclaimed the governess,
“can there be others as unhappy as ourselves!”
“It was a boat, or my sight is not true as usual,”
returned Wilder, still keeping his stand, to watch
the moment when he might catch another view. His
wish was quickly realized. He had trusted the helm,
for the moment, to the hands of Cassandra, who suffered
the launch to vary a little from its course. The
words were still on his lips, when the same black
object came sweeping down the wave to windward,
and a pinnace, bottom upwards, washed past them
in the trough. Then followed a shriek from the
negress, who abandoned the tiller, and, sinking on
caught the helm, as he bent his face in
the direction whence the revolting eye of Cassandra
had been turned. A grim human form was seen,
erect, and half exposed, advancing in the midst of
the broken crest which was still covering the dark
declivity to windward with foam. For a moment,
it stood with the brine dripping from the drenched
locks, like some being that had issued from the deep
to turn its frightful features on the spectators; and
then the lifeless body of a drowned man drove past
the launch, which, at the next minute, rose to the
summit of the wave, to sink into another vale, where
no such terrifying object floated.
Not only Wilder, but Gertrude and Mrs Wyllys,
had seen this startling spectacle so nigh them as to
recognize the countenance of Nighthead, rendered
still more stern and forbidding than ever, in the impression
left by death. But neither spoke, nor gave
any other evidence of their intelligence. Wilder
hoped that his companions had at least escaped the
shock of recognizing the victim; and the females
themselves saw, in the hapless fortune of the mutineer,
too much of their own probable though more
protracted fate, to be able to give vent to the horror
each felt so deeply, in words. For some time, the
elements alone were heard sighing a sort of hoarse
requiem over the victims of their conflict.
“The pinnace has filled!” Wilder at length observed,
when he saw, by the pallid features and
meaning eyes of his companions, it was in vain to
affect reserve on the subject any longer. “Their
boat was frail, and loaded to the water's edge.”
“Think you all are lost?” observed Mrs Wyllys,
in a voice that scarcely amounted to a whisper.
“There is no hope for any! Gladly would I part
with an arm, for the assistance of the poorest of
those misguided seamen, who have hurried on their
“And, of all the happy and thoughtless human
beings who lately left the harbour of Newport, in a
vessel that has so long been the boast of mariners,
we alone remain!”
“There is not another: This boat, and its contents,
are the sole memorials of the `Royal Caroline!'
”
“It was not within the ken of human knowledge
to foresee this evil,” continued the governess, fastening
her eye on the countenance of Wilder, as
though she would ask a question which conscience
told her, at the same time, betrayed a portion of that
very superstition which had hastened the fate of the
rude being they had so lately passed.
“It was not.”
“And the danger, to which you so often and so inexplicably
alluded, had no reference to this we have
incurred?”
“It had not.”
“It has gone, with the change in our situation?”
“I hope it has.”
“See!” interrupted Gertrude, laying a hand, in
her haste, on the arm of Wilder. “Heaven be
praised! yonder is something at last to relieve the
view.”
“It is a ship!” exclaimed her governess; but, an
envious wave lifting its green side between them and
the object, they sunk into a trough, as though the
vision had been placed momentarily before their
eyes, merely to taunt them with its image. The
quick glance of Wilder had caught, however, a
glimpse of the tracery against the heavens, as they
descended. When the boat rose again, his look was
properly directed, and he was enabled to be certain
of the reality of the vessel. Wave succeeded wave,
and moments followed moments, during which the
as the launch unavoidably fell into the troughs
of the seas. These short and hasty glimpses sufficed,
however, to convey all that was necessary to the
eye of a man who had been nurtured on that element,
where circumstances now exacted of him
such constant and unequivocal evidences of his skill.
At the distance of a mile, there was in fact a ship
to be seen, rolling and pitching gracefully, and without
any apparent effort, on those waves through
which the launch was struggling with such difficulty.
A solitary sail was set, to steady the vessel, and that
so reduced, by reefs, as to look like a little snowy
cloud amid the dark maze of rigging and spars. At
times, her long and tapering masts appeared pointing
to the zenith, or even rolling as if inclining against
the wind; and then, again, with slow and graceful
sweeps, they seemed to fall towards the ruffled surface
of the ocean, as though about to seek refuge
from their endless motion, in the bosom of the agitated
element itself. There were moments when
the long, low, and black hull was seen distinctly
resting on the summit of a sea, and glittering in the
sun-beams, as the water washed from her sides; and
then, as boat and vessel sunk together, all was lost to
the eye, even to the attenuated lines of her tallest and
most delicate spars.
Both Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude bowed their faces
to their knees, when assured of the truth of their
hopes, and poured out their gratitude in silent and
secret thanksgivings. The joy of Cassandra was
more clamorous, and less restrained. The simple
negress laughed, shed tears, and exulted in the most
touching manner, on the prospect that was now offered
for the escape of her young mistress and herself
from a death that the recent sight had set before
her imagination in the most frightful form. But no
answering look of congratulation was to be traced
“Now,” said Mrs Wyllys, seizing his hand in both
her own, “may we hope to be delivered; and then
shall we be allowed, brave and excellent young man,
some opportunity of proving to you how highly we
esteem your services.”
Wilder permitted the burst of her feelings with a
species of bewildered care, but he neither spoke,
nor in any other manner exhibited the smallest sympathy
in her joy.
“Surely you are not grieved, Mr Wilder,” added
the wondering Gertrude, “that the prospect of escape
from these awful waves is at length so mercifully
held forth to us!”
“I would gladly die to shelter you from harm,”
returned the young sailor; “but”—
“This is not a time for any thing but gratitude and
rejoicing,” interrupted the governess; “I cannot
hearken to any cold exceptions now; what mean
you with that `but?' ”
“It may be not so easy as you think to reach yon
ship—the gale may prevent—in short, many is the
vessel that is seen at sea which cannot be spoken.”
“Happily, such is not our cruel fortune. I understand,
considerate and generous youth, your wish to
dampen hopes that may possibly be yet thwarted;
but I have too long, and too often, trusted this dangerous
element, not to know that he who has the
wind can speak, or not, as he pleases.”
“You are right in saying we are to windward,
Madam; and, were I in a ship, nothing would be
easier than to run within hail of the stranger.—That
ship is certainly lying-to, and yet the gale is not
fresh enough to bring so stout a vessel to so short
canvas.”
“They see us, then, and await our arrival.”
“No, no: Thank God, we are not yet seen! This
take it for a gull, or a comb of the sea, for the moment
it is in view.”
“And do you thank Heaven for this!” exclaimed
Gertrude, regarding the anxious Wilder with a wonder
that her more cautious governess had the power
to restrain.
“Did I thank Heaven for not being seen! I may
have mistaken the object of my thanks: It is an
armed ship!”
“Perhaps a cruiser of the King's! We are the
more likely to meet with a welcome reception! Delay
not to hoist some signal, lest they increase their
sail, and leave us.”
“You forget that the enemy is often found upon
our coast. This might prove a Frenchman!”
“I have no fears of a generous enemy. Even a
pirate would give shelter, and welcome, to females
in such distress.”
A long and profound silence succeeded. Wilder
still stood upon the thwart, straining his eyes to read
each sign that a seaman understands; nor did he appear
to find much pleasure in the task.
“We will drift ahead,” he said, “and, as the ship
is lying on a different tack, we may yet gain a position
that will leave us masters of our future movements.”
To this his companions knew not well how to
make any objections. Mrs Wyllys was so much
struck with the remarkable air of coldness with
which he met this prospect of refuge against the forlorn
condition in which he had just before confessed
they were placed, that she was much more disposed
to ponder on the cause, than to trouble him with
questions which she had the discernment to see
would be useless. Gertrude wondered, while she
was disposed to think he might be right, though she
knew not why. Cassandra alone was rebellious.
delay, assuring the abstracted and perfectly inattentive
young seaman, that, should any evil come to
her young mistress by his obstinacy, General Grayson
would be angered; and then she left him to reflect
on the results of a displeasure that to her simple
mind teemed with all the danger that could attend
the anger of a monarch. Provoked by his contumacious
disregard of her remonstrances, the negress,
forgetting all her respect, in blindness in behalf of
her whom she not only loved, but had been taught
to reverence, seized the boat-hook, and, unperceived
by Wilder, fastened to it, with dexterity, one of
the linen cloths that had been brought from the
wreck, and exposed it, far above the diminished sail,
for a couple of minutes, ere her device had caught
the eyes of either of her companions. Then, indeed,
she lowered the signal, in haste, before the
dark and frowning look of Wilder. But, short as
was the triumph of the negress, it was crowned with
complete success.
The restrained silence, which is so apt to succeed
a sudden burst of displeasure, was still reigning in
the boat, when a cloud of smoke broke out of the
side of the ship, as she lay on the summit of a
wave; and then came the deadened roar of artillery,
struggling heavily up against the wind.
“It is now too late to hesitate,” said Mrs Wyllys;
“we are seen, let the stranger be friend or enemy.”
Wilder did not answer, but continued to profit,
by each opportunity, to watch the movements of the
stranger. In another moment, the spars were seen
receding from the breeze, and, in a couple of minutes
more, the head of the ship was changed to the direction
in which they lay. Then appeared four or
five broader sheets of canvas in different parts of the
complicated machinery, while the vessel bowed to
the gale, as though she inclined still lower before its
bows seemed issuing from the element altogether,
and high jets of spray were cast into the air, glittering
in the sun, as the white particles scattered in
the breeze, or fell in gems upon the sails and rigging.
“It is now too late, indeed;” murmured our adventurer,
bearing up the helm of his own little craft,
and letting its sheet glide through his hands, until
the sail was bagging with the breeze nearly to bursting.
The boat, which had so long been labouring
through the water, with a wish to cling as nigh as
possible to the Continent, flew over the seas, leaving
a long trail of foam behind it; and, before either of
the females had regained their entire self-possession,
she was floating in the comparative calm that was
created by the hull of a large vessel. A light active
form stood in the rigging of the ship, issuing the necessary
orders to a hundred seamen; and, in the
midst of the confusion and alarm that such a scene
was likely to cause in the bosom of woman, Gertrude
and Mrs Wyllys, with their two companions,
were transferred in safety to the decks of the stranger.
The moment they and their effects were secured,
the launch was cut adrift, like useless lumber.
Twenty mariners were then seen climbing among the
ropes; and sail after sail was opened still wider, until,
bearing the vast folds of all her canvas spread, the
vessel was urged along the trackless course, like a
swift cloud drifting through the thin medium of the
upper air.
| CHAPTER II. The Red Rover | |