University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
The Fate of the Shallop.

The wrecker, from his deck, saw the schooner reappear
from the darkness astern, in about a quarter of
an hour after he had passed her with such damage to
his little vessel; and with one arm clinging around the
stump of his main-mast, and the other thrust into his
bosom, he stood with his face towards her, sternly
watching her approach.

`They come upon me fast! They will soon be
aboard of the shallop, and it will be a grave in the
deep sea, or chains,' he said within himself. `I will
not die yet. What proof have they, that I am the
wrecker that kindles the false beacon on the reefs?
No man knows it, that dare betray me! So, I fear
them not. But what these now seek me for, is not a
matter of beacons and shipwrecks. That boy's tale
has despatched the schooner, for I clearly saw him
with my glass on her decks yesterday, when she came
so near as to fire a shot over me. Then I should have
been taken, but for an opening in the keys into which
I run, and so got through to the channel beyond, while
they had two leagues round to go. Ah, I have led
them a brave chase, the three days since I sailed from
my anchorage under the Moro. And well it was I did
sail, for I should have been prevented, I see, from the
prompt manner this schooner has been sent against

me. Bravely they come on, and in five minutes they
will be up with me! They mean to run over me!'
he suddenly exclaimed, with a quick alarm, that showed
the instinctive love of life was true to itself. `No!
they are putting the helm up! I will suffer them to
take me, for I shall deny all knowledge of the boy.
His word can be no proof for my detention, after she
gets back to port; and no man of them can identify
me as the displayer of the beacon. They are upon
me! I must yield or sink! Ho! the schooner!' he
shouted, in a tone loud and imperious,—do you mean
to go over me?'

`No, but I mean to sink your shallop,' answered
Forrestal, who had changed his original intention,
knowing the man would save himself. `As the bows
of the schooner touch you — for I can't pass you, having
no command of my vessel in such a sea — cling to
the anchor-fluke and throw yourself on board!'

There was no time to deliberate. The schooner was
right upon him. The masts and sails towered above
his head, and the next wave would hurl her over his
little vessel, whose deck was now nearly level with the
surface of the sea

`Now is your time,' shouted Forrestal, in a tone
heard above the noise of the waves; and the same instant
the sharp bows of the schooner struck the larboard
quarter of the lugger about a fathom forward of
her taffrail, and pressed her, or rather crushed her with
the blow and weight instantly out of sight! The
wrecker, with an oath at the loss of his vessel, and at
being compelled to throw himself into the hands of
his foes, caught at the fluke of the anchor, and saved

himself from being swallowed up in the wild vortex
which had engulfed the shallop. He then threw
himself over the bulwarks of the schooner, and, half
swimming, half wading through the seas that broke
over the bows on their striking the shallop, he made his
way aft, and confronted Forrestal, who had hung a
battle-lantern on one of the belaying-pins under the
main shrouds. The light of the lantern fell full upon
the wrecker. He was bare-headed, and his grey thick
hair was dripping with brine. His brawny neck and
chest were naked, and he was clad only in a Spanish
shirt and pantaloons. His large stature and muscular
frame were in strong relief, and the haughty defying expression
of his strongly marked features was imposing.
With his bared arms folded across his herculean breast,
he stood, as if disdaining any support, during the irregular
rolling of the vessel, surveying Forrestal, and
Forrestal surveying him, for full half a minute in
silence. Close by Forrestal's side stood the light, elegant
figure of Harry Carneil, his eyes also closely reading
the features of the wrecker.

`So, then, is this your welcome,' said Ingles, with a
sneer, and a disdainful movement of his head; `am I
a wild beast, that you and your men stand and gaze
on me thus. God help you! I hope you will know
me again, and especially that younker with the button!
You have run down my vessel, and I expect you to
give me hospitality on your own!'

`You shall have it, to your heart's content,' answered
Forrestal with a cool smile.

Harry had started, and all the blood in his heart
leaped to his brain, when the wrecker alluded to him.

For an instant he could not speak. He was about to
reply in an indignant tone and boldly denounce him,
when Forrestal said, in an under tone,

`It is your man, Harry, is it not?'

`Yes, and I —'

`Not now. Time enough. This is no time nor
place. He is ours, and we will sift him soon as this
gale is out! Keep quiet, and compose yourself, and
be thankful for our success! I need n't have asked
you, to be sure, if he was the right fellow, for he could
be nobody else than precisely your villain! Come,
sir,' added Forrestal, turning to his prisoner, `you will
please, for the present, regard yourself as my prisoner!'

`By what authority?' haughtily demanded Ingles.

`That I will explain by and by, when we can hear
each other speak better. The irons, gunner?'

`They are here, sir!'

`Put them on him!'

`Do you bind a shipwrecked man — wrecked by
your own vessel?' he demanded, stepping back.

`You need not think to deceive me. You are the
skipper of the shallop that I have been in chase of up
the keys for two days past. You are the wrecker who
lay at anchor under the Moro Castle three nights ago!
If I find on examination to-morrow I have wronged
you, I will make reparation. Will you submit quietly
to be manacled?'

`This is a dangerous ground your schooner is driving
over! Each moment, I warn you, you are in
danger of shipwreck!'

`I know it, and I mean to come to anchor now I
have caught you, sir! I have risked the lives of every
man on board, as well as the vessel, to get you in my
power, for I should have come to anchor after losing
my jib, but for the pleasure of this meeting! Clear
away the anchor. Spring lively, men, for it is time
now to look to ourselves. Cast the lead, one of you.
Look out forward that none of you get caught by a
sea and carried overboard in its arms. Luff a little
and lay her to the wind, helmsman, close as you can,
and check her head as much as you can in safety to
the men that are clearing away the anchors. It won't
be safe to let her drive this way.'

`Quarter-less-six!' sang out the man in the fore-rigging,
for there was too much sea yet for him to stand
in the chains, though the gale was evidently lessening
in its force, and the waves broke seldom and less violently
over her stern; while forward she kept her forecastle
clearer of seas than she had done ten minutes
before.

`I submit,' answered the wrecker, sullenly, `but if I
must be chained, and your vessel is wrecked, my life
be on your hands.'

`I will be responsible, Señor,' answered Forrestal,
firmly.

`Five and a half!' cried the man heaving the lead.

`You see it shoals. We are driving ashore!'

`More need to have you secure. Gunner, do your
duty. Hurry there with the anchor.'

`I will see to the men and the anchor, dear Forrestal,
if you will only have him chained,' cried Carneil.

`That I will do. Forward, and call out when all is
ready. We are driving to destruction, and have been;
but I have done it to secure this fellow.'

Ingles sullenly suffered the gunner, aided by the
boatswain, to fasten the manacles upon his wrists.

`Now pass that slack of the topsail halyards twice
round his waist,' said Forrestal, `and secure him firmly
with a double turn to the capstan. If he gets free from
that he will have to pull the capstan up from the deck;
and, bull-necked as he is, he won't quite do that.'

The wrecker was chained and bound as Forrestal
had commanded, the key of his hand-cuffs being taken
by Harry himself, with a feeling of peculiar satisfaction.
Forrestal now gave all his attention to the safety
of the schooner. In a few moments the anchor was
ready. Men were stationed at the halyards of the fore
and main sails, and two placed at the wheel.

`Hard-a-lee!' shouted Forrestal, from the starboard
main-rigging, into which he had got, better to command
the schooner.

The bows came round with a leap, as it were, dashing
the spray high into the air.

`Halyards all!' shouted the commander, and the
fore and main sails came down, leaving the schooner
without a stitch of canvass.

`Now let go the anchor,' cried Forrestal, his voice
heard clear and distinct above the raging elements.

The noise of the plunge of the anchor was lost in
the louder dash of the waves. The twenty fathom of
cable was brought up tight in an instant, and the
schooner was checked with a shock as if she had
struck a rock.

`That liked to have knocked her masts out of her,'
said Rogers, who we forgot to say accompanied Forrestal
and Harry to the schooner from the sloop-of-war;
and acted as second in command, next to Carneil.

`She drags her anchor, sir!' shouted Harry, from
the windlass.

`What water have we?'

`A quarter-less-five.'

`That is not bad for the Banks. I am more afraid
now of deepening our soundings, for then I should
know we were near an island. Does she drift much,
leadsman?'

`About four knots.'

`That is better than driving twelve. Clear away
the other anchor. The best bower is n't enough.'

A second anchor was just ready to be dropped, when
Carneil reported that the best bower had parted.

Forrestal had no need to be told, for the portion in-board
flew back, striking the hollow deck with the report
of a four pounder; while the vessel began to toss
about like a chip in a whirlpool. The other anchor
was dropped as soon as the schooner could be brought
head-to again, and her way deadened; but this did not
hold her so but that she drifted four knots, each moment
shoaling her water.

The clouds, in the mean while, were growing lighter,
not only in the west, but overhead, and there was
every sign that the gale would speedily abate.

`So long as I do n't get much more nor much less
than six fathom, I am safe, Harry. How does the
cable hold?'

`Well.'

`See that it does n't chafe in the hawse-hole.'

`It is well served with matting and canvass. There
is not so much strain as there was, sir, on the other.
The sea is falling. It was a plunge head-foremost,
and then the short lift again, that parted the best
bower.'

`I hope we shall ride it out; for I do n't know where
we are. The lead gives black and white grains I see,
but this is the same for a hundred miles of latitude on
the Banks, at precisely the same depth of water. I
only know we are in the channel, but whereabouts,
north or south of Abaco, I can't say. One of you
go aloft and see if you see any thing of the English
light on the key head. It is ten miles south of `The-Hole-in-the-Wall,'
and we should see it if we are in its
neighborhood, as it is now clearing in the horizon.'

`I will go up and see,' answered Rogers. `But this
is the region of the false beacon, that all the captains
who have been wrecked swear they were misled by,
though nobody has ever been able to find a trace of
one by the day.'

The wrecker's face wore a peculiar smile of exultation
and contempt as this remark fell upon his ear.
But he remained silent, though his lips moved slightly,
as if he would have spoken something. The movement
of the muscles of his lips was, however, quite as
expressive as words.

`What do you see?' called Forrestal to his acting
lieutenant, after he had got up in the rigging two thirds
of the way to the top-sail-yard.

`The waves run so high that by daylight we
could n't see more than two miles. I discover nothing.'

`She drifts so, sir,' cried Harry, from forward, `that I
fear she has slipped her anchor. There does n't seem
to be any strain on the cable.'

`Give a turn to the windlass and see. I should not
wonder if we had lost it; she has been pulling at it
ever since it caught itself on the bottom, like a horse
trying to snap his bridle.'

`The cable comes in freely, sir! we are drifting!'

`Then we must take our chance, for there is no
knowing where we are. Keep a good look out, Mr.
Rogers, for the light. The clouds are breaking and
opening fast, and we will soon find out where the
schooner is. There is a star already twinkling through
a gap in the storm. All hands to make sail. Man
the halyards there forward and let us set the reefed
fore-sail again. Spring aft here some of you to the
main halyards. We must try and carry sail now we
have no anchors to hold on by.'

`Light ho!' called out the young officer cheerily
from the cross-trees, in which he stood swinging to and
fro with the roll of the schooner, in fearful arcs of full
forty feet sweep from side to side.

`Where away?' shouted Forrestal in a joyous tone.

`In this direction,' he answered, pointing over the
larboard quarter. `I can't tell how it bears, as we have
no compass, sir.'

`The gale blows from the south and west,' said
Forrestal, thoughtfully; `we must be driving now towards
the north and east. The light bears then about
W. S. W. We are in the channel, there is no doubt
of that, and have been bowling straight through it all
along, or we should have been brought up by some of

these islands or keys long since. There is no other
light in this region than the English light, and this
must be it, for I calculated we could not be far from
its neighborhood. I will go aloft and see for myself.
I see it now,' he said to Rogers, after he had got up a
dozen ratlins; `it is the English light. I know now
where we are. Now if we had a bowsprit we could
soon run up and make a harbor, for there is good
anchorage there.'

`The gale has nearly blown itself out, sir,' said Harry
to him as he came down upon deck. `Shall I see to
fitting a spar for a temporary bowsprit? We can
rig one in an hour, and in another hour bend another
jib.'

`You are born for a sailor, Harry. I was about to
give you orders to do this very thing.'

Harry sprung forward, involuntarily shrinking with
a gesture and glance of fear as he passed the wrecker,
who stood silent and gloomy with his manacled arms
crossed upon his breast, and listening with an air of
scorn, and at times with a derisive smile on his lip, at
the conversation of the officers. Forrestal went below
to examine his chart. He unrolled it before him upon
the table, and soon ascertained exactly where he would
be likely to be, the light bearing in a certain quarter.

`I am,' he mused, revolving his calculations in his
mind, `I am about six miles south of “The-Hole-in-the-Wall,”
and about five distant from that light, and this will
make the schooner here,' he said, making a point with
his compasses nearly half way between `The-Hole-in-the-Wall'
and the English light. `Here is my position,
and I am going this course to the N. N. E. at the

rate of nine knot under my reefed fore-sail and main-sail!
This is my place on the chart, if the gale has not
veered and still blows as it did when it began, from
the south.'

`It has abated enough, sir,' called Rogers from the
companion-way, `to shake a reef out of both sails.'

`Then make more sail and set the fore-top-sail close
reefed.'

`Ay, ay, sir.'

`The wind, I think, still holds where it did, for
the waves roll with a regular onward swell, which
they would not do if the wind had chopped. Besides,
I see no varying of the mercury in the thermometer,
which any change of the wind to a point more northerly
would affect instantly. So I will make my course
accordingly for the light.'

`The new bow-sprit is in hand, Mr. Forrestal,' said
Harry, coming into the cabin, `and it will soon be run
out. I have every spare hand at work either hewing,
rigging in stays for the jib, getting ready to bend on
the jib, or reeving halyards. In less than half an hour
we shall have the sail set.'

`You have done well, Harry. There is our position,'
and he placed the point of his dividers in the
place he had before marked. `The light bears so! the
wind comes from about S. by W. and we are here.
I shall go about as soon as I can carry the jib, and
try to make the light for a harbor.'

`The sea is going down and we shall soon have a
clear sky and less wind.'

`I hope so. Your man on deck, Harry, looks as if
he would like to have us all go to the bottom together.'

`I shudder, even to pass him! All he made me
suffer when a boy rushes upon my memory, and I tremble
as I did then. But I will conquer this.'

`You are sure it is the man?' asked Forrestal,
looking in his face earnestly.

`Yes; I cannot be mistaken.'

`Has he noticed you? Does he seem to recognize
you at all?'

`No; he has noticed me only by the remark you
heard him make.'

`It was a singular remark to be made to you, if he
is the man and did not know who you were. I am
glad you are so positive, for in binding him I have
taken a great responsibility; for he might have been
only a poor wrecker. Half of them you know look
like bucaneers, so this man's looks are not evidence
enough against him.'

`I can tell you how you can be convinced. I remember
that the man who tore me and my sister
Isidore from our home had lost his small toe from the
right foot. I used often to see him wash his feet in
the cabin when I was in his power, and this circumstance
made a strong impression upon me.'

`This, then, will be evidence enough. What has
he on his feet?'

`Spanish boots of untanned skin,' answered Harry,
going up the companion-way and looking at the prisoner,
who stood where the light of the battle-lantern
could expose every movement.

`This matter shall be decided at once.'

`I do n't need any such proof; for I am positive,

Mr. Forrestal. He avoids my eye. I am glad he is
bound.'

`I have bound him lest he should do you a harm,
for he cannot escape unless we are shipwrecked. Sir
Spaniard,' said Forrestal, who did not wish him to
suspect his purpose, `I know it is the custom of your
countrymen to conceal knives in your sleeves, girdles,
and even your boots. I wish to deprive you of any
such means of doing mischief. You will suffer the
boatswain to search you.'

He made no reply, but smiled scornfully, and unfolding
his arms, permitted the boatswain to examine
his sash, and then his sleeves.

`Now his boots!' said Forrestal, with deep interest
in this part of the proceeding.

The left boot was removed and held up and shaken
by the earnest and thorough-searching sailor; but no
knife fell from it.

`Now the other!'

The wrecker put out this foot with the same air of
defiance and derision he had offered the other. He
seemed to feel a pleasure in disappointing them; for he
could have no suspicion of a deeper motive than that
which had been given for the removal of his boots.
He could not even have any idea of the use that might
be made of any discovery that should be made of a
physical defect.

`There is nothing here, sir,' said the boatswain.
At the same instant Forrestal felt Harry nervously
pressing upon his arm. `Very well, help him put on
his boots again,' answered Forrestal to the boatswain.

`I am sorry to trouble you, Señor, but I wish to be
secure.'

`You saw it, Mr. Forrestal!' exclaimed Harry,
drawing him down into the cabin.

`Yes; and now all my doubts are removed. That
man shall stick to me and I to him till all you wish to
know is known.'