University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
The Chase.

The flag of the Republic was hoisted to the peak, and also to the
fore, on board the brig of war, and the decks were cleared for action,
while every additional sail that could draw, was set to the wind.

The ship, which had nothing above her top-gallants, when she was
approaching, now set her three royals, and studding-sails alow and aloft,
on her starboard side. She was using, plainly, every possible effort to
escape from the brig.

Upon her decks were about twenty-five people, fourteen of them
composing her crew; the others were the captain, his mates, three
passengers and their servants. The seamen were stationed in various
parts of the ship, ready to obey the orders of their officers, who
appeared strougly excited by their danger, and were bringing into
exercise all their skill, to escape the fate that menaced them. There
were two nine pounders on board, at which the mate was busily drilling
some of the men with the motions of loading and firing. The Captain,
a small, active little Frenchman, with huge whiskers that encircled his
chin and cheeks like a fur muffler, had his station upon the companion-way,
spy-glass in hand, watching the enemy. Near him stood an old
man of fifty-five, tall, and military in his air, but his person something
wasted with illness. His grey locks crowned his temples with their
snowy honors, and his dark eye yet beamed with fire. Its expression
now, however, was more that of anxiety and love blended, as they
rested upon the features of a lovely girl who hung upon his arm, or,
rather, upon whose arm he himself leaned. As his eyes turned from
the fast advancing vessel to her sweet countenance, he sighed, and
from time to time, raised his eyes heavenward, as if seeking for her its
protection. Then again his glance would flash with the bold courage
of a father, and his hand would grasp more firmly the hilt of a sword
that was girded by his side.

The maiden was about nineteen years of age, and dark-eyed, with

raven hair, and a figure of blended grace and dignity. Love and
mirth dwelt, when fear, as now, did not control, in the dimples of her
delicate cheek, and slumbered upon the ruby pillows of her lips. Her
form was slight, not too tall, and her hand was exquisitely shaped, and
white as ivory. Her foot, which, in her troubled thoughts, slightly
and nervously patted the deck, was minute, and faultless almost to a
fault. She wore upon her head a small plaid hood, of red and green
colors, and a rich scarlet cashmere shawl, folded about her symmetrical
form, half concealing, half revealing, the exquisite shape of her waist.

Not far from her, stood an African slave, a short, fat negress, with a
bright crimson handkerchief, tied like a hood, upon her head, and
a yellow silk gown, very short, beneath which appeared a pair of
enormous feet, cased in green shoes with high heels. About the neck
of this Congo maiden was a string of large gold beads, and upon her
ebony wrists, shone, with splendor of Guinea gold, a pair of broad
bracelets. Her features were remarkable only for the great size of the
lips, the whiteness of the teeth, that a leopard might have envied, and for
the round pearly vastness of her eyes, which at the present moment
were unusually expanded by fear. From the gold beads was suspended
a small, silver cross, which she held in her hand, at intervals uttering
to it some exclamation, and then devoutly and earnestly kissing it.

Of all present upon the deck, the young lady seemed the most
composed and self-possessed. It is true, her cheek paled as she heard
the Captain say, after taking a longer survey than usual, of the chase,
`Mon Dieu! She gains on us one fathom in every five! By sunset,
unless we can shoot away her spars and check her when she comes
near enough, she will be up with us.'

At this remark, the old gentleman clasped his daughter tenderly to
his heart, and the negress, falling upon her knees, began to utter
outcries of terror.

`Hist, Linda,' said her young mistress, firmly. `This is no time to
give way to such fears. Go into the cabin, unless you can have more
courage.'

`I fraid go down, Missis! Do n't send me down, Missis! I do n't
cry for me, but for you. I tink ony for you, if de Mexicum catch us.
What will become ob you!'

`I shall be safe, girl. The captain says it is a vessel of war; and
if we are taken we shall be treated with honor as prisoners.'

`Would to God I could think so,' said her father. `But I have
little faith in the honor of these people. Their flag has already
committed many excesses and outrages. I see my folly now, Captain
Deland, in not waiting for the convoy. Three weeks delay would have
been better than capture.'

`I did not expect to fall in with a Mexican this side of Cuba
Marquis,' said the captain, `it being out of the usual track.
supposed they would be found only in the north channel, between Cuba
and the coast of Florida. Peste! If I was only in a fast sailer, I
would now have no fears, with this distance in advance.'

`How far are they off, sir?' asked the maiden, calmly.

`About four miles. If we could only keep along till dark, before
they came up with us, we should be able to get out of their way in the
night by doubling. But she seems to sail with the wind, and come
down with it. If I had not discovered as soon as I did, that she was
an armed vessel, and tacked about, we should have been now within
her gun-shot. As soon as I saw with my glass, that she was armed, I
knew she was Mexican, before she displayed her flag.'

`What a pity, sir, we had n't hoisted the American colors,' said the
Marquis.

`I am not ashamed to take what destiny offers, under the colors of
la belle France,' answered the captain, with a look of patriotic zeal.
`They would have boarded us, had we hoisted the Yankee bunting, and
our speech and looks would have betrayed us, even if our canvass and
spars had not beforehand. Every true sailor can tell what nation a
vessel belongs to before he touches her deck. Ships have natural
features as much as men.'

`What is your opinion about fighting her, captain?' asked the
Marquis, after looking with the glass at the brig, and then, at her
request, handing it to his daughter.

`That's my resolve, Marquis. The two guns I have will throw shot
quite as well as the brig's, and I assure you, when they come within
range they shall have it. If I can manage to hit their foremast, it will
stop their headway.'

`This seems to me the only chance of our escaping unless —'

`You hesitate! Unless what, Monsieur Marquis?'

`Unless you run the ship ashore,' answered the French noble, casting
his eyes towards the green woodlands of Cuba, about three miles

distant, here and there broken by a cultivated opening indicating the
site of a coffee estate. In the distance, rose, blue and boldly, the
central mountains of the Island.

`That's a sad alternative, Monsieur,' said the Captain, looking
shoreward. `The idea did not occur to me. It is a good one. We
may run the ship ashore, and by sacrificing it, save ourselves from a
prison.'

`That is what I have been thinking upon. The brig's crew would
hardly pursue us on land, and we could soon reach some coffee estate in
the interior, where we should be in safety. They will be content with
the plunder of the ship.'

`And that they shall not have; for if I have to beach her, I will set
her on fire. We can escape in our boats. But I trust we shall not
have to be driven to this alternative, Monsieur Marquis. I have great
confidence in being able to disable her with my guns, before she can
come up with me.'

`They will be likely to have artillery that will overshoot your own,
Captain,' said the Marquis; `in that case, they can fire into us from
their own distance, while our shot will fall short.'

`A brig of war is not likely to come up within gunshot of a mere
merchant-ship, and stop there, to knock her to pieces. Believe me, she
will stand on just as you see her until she comes up close under our
stern, and then order us to beave-to, and if we do n't she will give us a
broadside. Now, I hope to be able, before she gets so near as that,
to cripple her with one of my nine-pounders. She walks on after us,
Marquis,' added the French Captain, with heightened color, as he saw
that he could make out details of her rigging that five minutes before
were blended with the distance. `You seem to look very brave,
Mademoiselle.'

`I am not without anxiety; but I have confidence in your skill and
courage, Monsieur Captain, and know that everything will be done for
the ship's safety and the lives of those on board.'

`Be sure that harm shall come to you last of all, Mademoiselle,'
answered the Captain, with the gallantry of a brave Frenchman. `If
we can't escape by running, Marquis, I shall adopt your plan, of
running for the shore.'

`I think it would be best.'

`We shall soon know what our fate will be. In the last half hour,

she has gained a mile. In another half hour she will be within
gunshot of us. I think I can make out with the glass, a long gun, on
a pivot, forward If so, it is, at the least, a thirty-two, and will send a
shot two miles with effect. How does she run now?' he demanded of
the mate, who had just thrown the log.

`Five and a half knots, Monsieur.'

`That's half a mile faster than we went a while since. But we
have now done our best, to gain this much. Not another inch of
canvass can be spared.'

`And for our half mile more speed,' said the Marquis, `she seems to
have got a mile and a half! There is no alternative, Captain. If we
let her come nearer she will fire into us, and disable us, so that we can't
reach the shore. My advice is, to square away before the wind and
run for the land.'

The French Captain looked perplexed. He saw that the brig was
walking down upon him at a slapping pace, and in less than an hour
would be near enough to blow him out of water. Escape he saw was
impossible. The only alternative left was, surrender and a prison, or
to run her ashore and fly into the interior.

`I will stand on a little longer, Marquis,' he at length said. `I
do n't feel, that I can in honor destroy my ship, before the enemy has
fired a single gun.'

`Then you have your wish, and a salvo to your honor,' cried the
Marquis, as he saw a light flash on board the brig, and a cloud of
smoke belch from her bows. At the same instant, he threw himself
before his child to protect her with his own person. The next second,
they were covered with spray, which the huge shot, as it struck the sea
near the counter, dashed over the quarter-deck.

`One fathom this way,' cried the Captain, `and we should have been
reached. She is nearer to us than I thought for. That is a hint for
me to heave-to.'

`Then there is no time left. Our peril is imminent!' cried the
Marquis. `For my lovely child's sake, Captain Deland, put up your
helm and make for the shore.'

The Captain made no reply, but after watching the brig a moment,
he gave an order to his mate to lower the colors.

`What is that order for? Do you intend to surrender?' demanded
the noble, with surprise.

`No, but to deceive them awhile, Monsieur. If I keep the colors
flying, they will continue to fire, and do us mischief, and perhaps
prevent the possibility of our getting to the land.'

`Then you decide to beach the ship?'

`Yes,' he answered, sweeping with his glass along the shore ahead.
`I wish to stand on till I get opposite a cove I discern, into which I mean
to run the ship. About two miles inland, is a large casa, which will
afford us shelter after we land in the boats. If I land opposite where
we now are, there is a wilderness of forest, and no near shelter that I
can discover.'

`I see your course is judicious,' answered the nobleman. `It is a
pity to destroy, deliberately, so large a ship with its rich freight; but it
is the only alternative. Either the ship must be wrecked, or it, with
ourselves, will fall into the hands of the enemy.'

`Do not put up the colors,' said Captain Deland to his officer; `I
mean to use them again. She shall burn with the French flag flying at
the peak and both mast-heads. You had best, Monsieur Marquis, to
collect together your valuables, and place them where they can be put
into the boats. Monsieur Levasse,' he added, to his mate, `go forward
and give each of the men opportunity to go below and make up their
bundles. You will then see that everything valuable is transferred
from the cabins to the quarter-boats.'

While these preparations for deserting the ship were going forward
in cabin and forecastle, she was pressing forward, under all sail, to get
abreast of the inlet in the land, which the Captain had designated as
the best spot at which to run her ashore, and facilitiate their escape.