 | CHAPTER II. Rafael |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
The schooner seeing us pass the merchant vessel and stand out after her,
became satisfied that we not only understood her character but were in pursuit;
she, therefore, as soon as she was satisfied with our intentions braced up sharp
and began to beat dead to windward. She already had had the advantage of
us in the wind, being, when we got outside, full a half mile to windward and
at least three and a half from us ahead.
`If he thinks he can eat his way into the wind and so get clear of us in
that way he is mistaken,' said Wordley, as he took his spy-glass from his eye
after observing the movement. `He finds that we can sail with him on a bowline,
for he has not gained a cable's length since we left the merchantman
and now he is going to see what he can do by making a hole with the end of
his jib-boom in the wind's eye! He knew well enough we should have over-hauled
him before midnight on this tack! I will keep on till I get him abeam
which will be a couple of miles further, and then see what the saucy Dolphin
will do!'
`He lays very close to the wind,' I remarked to Wordley, as I took the
bearings by the binnacle compass!'
`Yes, full five points near!' he answered glancing at the compass. `He has
everything set as flat as the palm of your hand! He looks as if he was going
right into the wind, for see his green flag that flies at the peak! it blows out
strait over the stern!'
`How far is he from us now in a strait line?' I asked.
`About three miles or perhaps two and three quarters.'
`Within reach of your shot?'
`No—not fired to windward!'
`Then his might reach you here?'
`Yes, if he carried heavy enough metal. But he seems to be more inclined
to run away than to fight.'
`He no doubt knows your superior force in men and guns.'
`Yes, he knows very well who I am. These fellows are well acquainted
with all armed vessels in these seas, and keep knowledge of their movements;
but I think he had lost his reckoning about mine when he run so boldly into
port; doubtless he thought I was on the south side of the island where I was
last week!'
`Have you any idea who he is?' I asked, as we went bowling along, close
hauled, in the course we had laid from first leaving our anchorage, a due W.
S. W. one, the chase in the meanwhile was standing on the starboard tack,
right in the teeth of the wind. If he had kept on his original course we
should now have been nearly in his wake and about a league astern of him;
but his tacking had changed our relative positions and running on opposite
sides of a triangle, we converging towards, and he diverging from,their point
of meeting, there was a place before us when we should be abeam or opposite
one another, and only a mile apart.
`When we get him in this position I shall open upon him as he passes on
the tack he is on,' said Wordley going forward to the forty-two pounder
which was all prepared for firing, the captain of the gun standing by with a
lighted fuse. `We shall be in this position but a minute or two, and I must
then do what I can to cripple him. And to be sure of my aim I shall back
the fore-topsail, and so fire as steadily from my deck as from a stationary battery!'
Taking his place upon the gun, Wordley now closely watched the schooner,
the two vessels rapidly approximating to that point in their diverse courses, as
we sailed on opposite tacks, which would bring us within a mile of each other
for an instant, and then, each passing on, would widen their distance unless
we tacked and stood on the course she was sailing, and so keep abeam of her.
`She is swinging round her forecastle gun,' said Wordley. `She means to
give us a shot, too, as we pass!'
In about five minutes more we came to the position in which we should be
nighest to each other. Wordley sprang from the gun and gave the order to
back the topsail. He then sighted the piece with his eye along the huge tube
of hollow iron, and taking the fuse from the gunner, stood a moment, till the
schooner's headway was deadened and she became stationary, which he ascertained
by throwing a cork over the side.
I had taken his glass and placed it to my eye to watch the effect of the shot.
I had a full view of the schooner. I could see upon her quarter-deck a figure
moving about with animation, whom I had no doubt was the captain. The
bulwarks and hammock-nettings were high, so that I could overlook only the
caps of the men, but these were very numerous, and were mostly red or blue
caps, with very few tarpaulins among them. I saw two fellows going up the
fore-rigging whose costume was that of the Spanish buccaneer. Before their
long gun the bulwark had been let down inside, giving it a free range in the
direction of our vessel. I could get glimpses of the men hovering about it,
and every sign of an inteation to fire upon us was as apparent as our own preparations
to fire upon him. The appearance of the schooner was very picturesque.
Her immense breadth of canvass compared with the small size of
her hull, as if the wings of a swan had been given to a black-bird. All her
sails, though large, were gracefully cut and symmetrical in their proportions.
heavier than ours, and her foretopsail was very much squarer. She moved
along dark and close to the water, with her long flying-jib-boom projecting
far beyond her bows and almost in a line level with the sea, while her masts of
great length raked aft so that the main truck overhung the taffrail. She lay
upon the water as straight as an arrow, her sharp bows shooting far out and
tapering gradually away into the bowsprit. Low, sharp, rakish, and taunt,
with a cloud of canvass above her decks.
She sailed on, dashing aside the spray from her bows and leaving a long
frothy wake astern that looked like a snow path upon the blue sea.
The sun was just setting as we came abeam of one another, and the stranger
schooner lay for an instant directly within the circle of his disc, like a
ship stamped upon a medal of gold.
I turned away my eye from the splender of the sight, and at the instant,
Wordley cried with animation,
`Right in the sun's eye! Fire!' He had hardly got the words out of his
lips when he applied the fuse himself to the piece and discharged it. At
the same instant the buccaneer also fired. His shot passed with a loud roar
between our masts, and we heard it dash up the spray to leeward, while the report
of our own gun, was yet ringing in our ears. Wordley threw down the
fuse to seize his glass and spring upon the windlass out of reach of the
smoke which was borne aft by the wind.
`My shot has done good service!' he exclaimed. `It has gone right into
her main-chains, and through and through her, I verily believe! See she falls
off as if there was confusion on board! I should'nt be surprised if I had
wounded her mainmast, for so far as I can judge, the shot must have struck it
between decks. If I had only taken her three feet below, she would have
had work for her pumps. As it is, I must have done her great mischief. Fill
away again, Mr Ferris! I will stand on till she gets a little headway on her
and then tack.'
We closely watched the schooner, Wordley expecting each moment, as he
said, to see her main-mast go by the board; but we were disappointed. The
vessel stood steadily on as before, with every thing drawing, and laying as
close to the wind as possible. We kept our course on the larboard tack,
about five minutes longer, and then tacked and stood after her. We soon discovered
that we could lay quite as near to the wind as the chase, and with
great nicety in the triming of every sail, and a careful watch of the helm, we
were enabled to come up half a point nigher, that is within about five and a
half points, the schooner laying within six.
`This is a decided advantage, and will by and by bring us up with her,' said
Ferris turning to me.' She will have to tack soon, as she can't run on that
leg more than a mile before she will be in shoal water; if we tack when she
does, we shall by and by work up to her; and at any rate get her within range
of another gun.'
`She must be within range now!'
`Yes—but her stern presents too small a mark at this distance; it dont look
bigger than a buoy,' said Wordley. `We will by and by get her broadside to.
If we could hit her as she is we could rake her, and do the business for her!'
The schooner after running in towards the land on the tack about ten minutes
longer, put about and stood away on the other tack. We kept on, passed
each other, and a second time exchanged shots, but this time without effect,
both vessels being in motion, although we were nigher to each other then
when we fired first. Our ball passed several feet astern of the chase, while
hers of the same weight of metal, struck the water about a hundred feet from
our larboard quarter, and taking an oblique direction,threw the spray over our
decks in its passage close under the counter. For a moment we believed that
the rudder must have been struck so close it passed us. The jets of water it
cast up, came down upon the deck as if from a fountain.
`That was well aimed,' exclaimed Wordley; and if we had been going three
feet an hour slower than we are, we should have had the best part of our keel
torn off, rudder and all. The speed of the Dolphin has saved her this time!'
We stood on a little further, and then tacked also. The rich bright
twilight that so long lingers after the sun sets, still covered sea and sky with
a brilliant rosy glow, by which the shores and the vessels in the port, and
every object within the limits of our horizon were distinctly visible. The atmosphere
was perfectly clear and it promised to be a light night! This would
greatly favor us, for Wordley was apprehensive that she might escape him in
the dark, should it cloud. But present appearances indicated a starry sky.—
Both vessels were now standing on the same tack, a W. S. W. course, the
chase about a mile and a half ahead, and a third of a mile to windward; but
we knew we were lessening this distance towards the wind every moment,
for our vessel was a fast sailor and her jib-boom never failed to go inside of
whatever it was pointed at.
The twilight deepened slowly into the shadows of the starry evening, and
we were still standing on the same course right out from the land. The
schooner had made no demonstrations of tacking again, although she had been
running a league on this tack, which was also her losing one; her real gain to
windward being on the other or starboard tack.
`That fellow intends to run away from us, be sure,' said Wordley after watching
her through his glass. He sees we can waltz to windward quite as delicately
as he can and now he means to run for it across the channel, doubtless
| CHAPTER II. Rafael | |