University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

When the French fleet under Admiral
D'Estaing arrived off New York to the assistance
of the Americans, the British fleet under
Lord Howe was at anchor in New York Bay.
The appearance of D'Estaing was sudden, and
produced no little consternation in the English
squadron. The wind, however, for several
days was too unfavorable for D'Estaing to
enter the harbor and attack them, and spending
the time in taking soundings, he waited
for an opportunity to sail in with his heavy
force, which must have gained a complete
victory over the British and made him master
of New York. At length the eleventh day
after his arrival off the Hook, D'Estaing
weighed anchor and put his fleet in motion.
The wind and tide `says Marshall in his Life
of Washington, `were peculiarly fovorable to
the passage of the bar, which it was supposed
he intended to attempt. It was to the British
Admiral and General a moment of awful expectation.
The attempt, if successful, must
have been attended with the loss of both their
fleet and army; if unfortunate, a brilliant
victory, and the destruction of the assailants,
might be contemplated as its most certain
consequences.'

The fleet stood in towards the channel, a
fine frigate taking the lead, when all at once
the frigate was seen to strike and remain fast
heeling over to leeward. The remainder of
the advancing vessels immediately put about
and going into the offing lay too and sent boats
to the assistance of the frigate. But two
British sloops of war seeing her situation had
already stood down towards her to which she
surrendered, and the boats returned to the
fleet, which stood eastward. At the next flood
the frigate was got off and piloted up the harbor
and anchored off the castle or battery
point— a noble prize, and one of which they
were not a little proud.

We will now return to `The Steel Arrow'
and her prisoner, Louis de Fernay. He had
remained an hour under guard in one of the
state rooms of the schooner, reflecting upon
his folly in suffering his curiosity and an undefinable
interest in the handsome smuggler's
lad, to lead him to sacrifice his personal liberty,
if not peril his life. He knew from the
motions of the schooner, that she was rapidly
moving through the water, and that a few
hours would bear him far from the French
Coast, and the shores of Europe. He felt that
he was destined to be conveyed a prisoner to
the Americans unless the schooner should fall
into the hands of cruisers.

`You seem moody, sir,' said Horsely suddenly
speaking, having sometime since silently
entered the cabin.

`I am a prisoner, which methinks affords
slight room for looking pleased,' answered
Louis.

`You were a spy. Who are you?'

`Louis de Farnay.'

`The son of the Marquis?'

`The same.'

`Then this accounts for your being in the
neighborhood of the cave. But how did you
discover it?'

Louis informed him of the particulars of his
first entrance into the hut, already known to
the reader, and to which Horsely listened with
surprise and interest. `And so your reappearance
there this morning was only from
curiosity?'

`Yes.'

`It is doubtless so. You are in the French
marine. I am short of hands and want on officer.
I believe your words and will give you
your liberty till we reach New York if you
will act as second officer on the passage.'

`I prefer returning to France. Land me
at the nearest port and I will pay you five
hundred francs.'

`It is a great temptation—but it is worth my
head to venture back. You must go on with
me. It is your own choice to go in irons or
as my second officer,'

`I go in irons then,' answered Louis haughtily.

`You shall have your choice,' said Horsely,
savagely; `Ho, there! bring irons and place
this prisoner in the ward room.'

The passage across the Atlantic had been
half made when one night in a terrific storm,
the first officer was washed overboard with two
of the watch. Horsely come below and removing
the irons from Louis' limbs, told him
that his aid as a seaman and as a man were
required on the deck.

`So that I do not do service as your officer
I will willingly help,' he replied, and followed
him to the deck. Here all was confusion
and dismay; and the winds and waves,
the roar of the thunder and the darting of the
forked lightning were terrific. The schooner
had sprung the heel of her mainmast and was
laboring heavily,—He applied all his skill and
energies to the duties he saw the imminent
danger called for, and his coolness and knowledge
at once restored the confidence of the
men. The storm terminated at sunrise and
Horseley coming to Louis offered his hand
and told him he believed he was indebted to
him for the safety of his vessel. `From this
moment you are free. If you see fit to do duty
as first officer in any emergency, the post is
vacant.'

`I shall cheerfully do all in my power for
the safety of the schooner while I am on board.
as well as for the preservation of the lives of
those who sail in her,' answered Louis, quietly.
And from that day he was regularly on
deck, taking command of the starboard watch.

During the time he had been a prisoner the
young lad, who seemed to be a clerk and private
attendant of Horseley, frequently showed
his sympathy for him by sending him books,
delicacies from the table and getting for him
the occasional privilege of walking on deck
to breathe the air. In him Louis became
deeply interested, and felt grateful for his attentions.
But he was never visited by him in
the ward-room nor addressed by him when on
deck in his chains; but the youth observed a
singular diffidence in his presence and showed
a desire to be unnoticed. Louis could not discover
that he did any duty on board except
what was voluntary; that he never went forward;
and that his favorite place was at the
helm.

The third day after the storm Horseley was
in his birth, it being his watch below. Louis
was pacing the quarter-deck of the schooner
which was running under easy sail N N. W.
The youth was at the helm when Louis came
on deck and still retained it, sending the relief
forward. Our hero stopped by the young
steersman and addressed him for the first time
in his life. The face of the youth was instantly
overspread with a blush—his eyes
drooped before his gaze and his chest heaved,
while such was his confusion, that he forgot
his duty and let the vessel come up to the
wind till her sails shivered. Louis caught the
helm, smiled at his embarrassment and putting
the vessel on her course again, was about
to resign it to him when he abruptly left the
deck and descended into the cabin, leaving
Louis fully confirmed in his suspicions that
she was a woman and a very beautiful one
too. He now resolved to learn her history, by
delicately drawing her out into conversation.
She had made a deep impression upon his imagination
and promised to make a deeper one
upon his heart. That evening upon the moonlit
deck he stood beside her and told his discovery
of her sex and the interest he took
in her. After her embarrassment was over
she yielded to his solicitations and narrated
her history. We can only give its brief outline.

Ralph Horsely had clandestinely married
the only daughter of the Earl of —, as we
have already intimated in a previous chapter.
By her had a daughter whose birth the mother
(broken hearted by the discovery of her husband's
dissolute and abandoned character) did
not long survive. Jealous lest her child who
was the only heir to the Earl, should be taken
from him Horseley, determined to keep it always
in his sight until the death of the Earl
should call for the true heir, when he intended
to present her with her claims and profit by
her accession to titles and wealth. He, soon
found in his lawless life that her sex would be
an obstacle to his keeping her in his sight,
and he resolved on the expedient when she
was in her fifth year, of putting her in boy's
costume. This he did so; and up to the period
we now see her a fine dark haired, brown
cheeked girl of seventeen she had been constantly
his companion as his son. He did not,
however, neglect the feminine education her
future position in society might render necessary;
but being an educated man himself, he
directed her studies in the leisure moments of
his wild life, found her books, and cultivated
her tastes. She, was, therefore, but little less
a woman for her male costume. This is the
outline of her story, not as Louis heard it but
as it becomes us to give to the reader. She
knew nothing of her father's motives; but believed

that to preserve her life from an uncle
who sought it, he kept her in this disguise.

Louis found her intelligent, full of warm impulses,
merry hearted and delightfully ignorant
of the world. He was surprised at her
modesty and softness of manners and suffered
himself to be led captive by her gazelle-like
eyes.

A few days passed and they had, secretly
from the father, met on deck, and let love do
dis own work of mischief in their young
hearts. Before the `Steel Arrow' reached
soundings on the American shore off Block
Island, the bewitching, spirited, modest, romantic
little Frank or Frances Horseley, had
exchanged her heart with that of the gallant
Louis de Fernay. How secretly did the maiden
keep her love from her father!

The morning after making the land, Louis
discovered ahead an extended fleet of ships of
war bearing down. Horseley with the glass
discovered that they carried the French flag,
when he immediately run up that of the rebel
States. Louis's heart beat on seeing ships
of his own land, and he almost wished the
refugee smuggler might be captured. But he
thought of leaving his fair daughter and he
put the helm two points to windward to give
them a wide hirth!

It was D'Estaing's fleet the day after it left
the frigate Endymion grounded, a prize to the
two sloops of war. It was steering to blockade
Newport and Long Island Sound; the issue
of which expedition is a matter of history.
`The Steel Arrow' gave the fleet a wide windward
birth and the next day under English
colors passed the Hook and took a pilot up the
harbor of New York. Horseley represented
to the pilot himself as a letter of marque, who
in his turn gave him all the current intelligence
of the day. The French frigate he
pointed out to them anchored above the sloops
of war, and Louis felt his cheek burn with
shame as the flag of England floating above
that of France met his eye.

`Oh, that I had the power to recapture her,'
he said with animation to Horseley who stood
beside him. `I have sailed in her and know
all her officers. She was the consort of Le
Minerve which was lost in the gale in the
channel. She is the best appointed vessel in
the French Navy, and the fastest sailer.'