University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

The youthful prisoner waited after his
friend left him, until he thought he had
given him sufficient time to absent himself
from the spot, and then taking up
the cord he secured it by a double turn
around the gun, and then carefully,
without noise, let it down through the
port to the water. The part of the ship
where he had been chained was nearly
pitch dark, it being under the top gallant
forecastle, in which, near the open
part of the deck, hung a bottle-lantern,
which burned very dimly, and hardly
sent its rays to the forward gun: there
was also a stanchion near the lantern,
the shadow of which, widening with the
distance, completely cast the young
man into shadow. He was, therefore,
perfectly secure from observation while
he prepared to carry out his plan of escape,
unless some petty officer should
come along with a light, or some friendly
seaman come to talk with him to cheer
his solitude; for this had been done during
the day. But at that crisis, Martin
Manwaring did not wish even the sympathizing
presence of a friendly sailor.

Having found, by drawing upon it,
that the line was strong enough to bear
his weight; for if it should part and let
him with a splash into the water, he
knew the noise would betray him to the
watch; he, therefore, took pains to see
that every means for his safety was secured.
He was cool and self-possessed
as was characteristic of him in hours of
peril by storm, and in the uproar of
battle; for all men in the sloop admitted
that not a more courageous and
thoroughly brave spirit had ever trod
the deck of a king's ship than the impressed
young colonist.

He was well aware that he was about
to undertake an enterprise, failure in
which would cost him his life. He
very well knew that the penalty for desertion
from a king's ship was death;
and that if he were discovered in the
water, he would be fired upon by the
sentries; and if not killed swimming,
he would be hanged after being taken.

All this he was aware of; yet, having
freed himself from his chains and the
way open before him, he resolved even
at all these risks to make an effort for
liberty. He felt that he was unjustly
detained in the king's service, and had
been iniquitously brought into it by impressment,
and that he was doing his
duty in leaving it. Under his circumstances,
being a free-born colonist, he
felt that desertion was no disgrace; but
on the contrary honorable! Thus he
had well considered and carefully
weighed the subject; and he now proceeded
to carry out his resolute purpose,
with calm confidence in the justice
of his conduct, and a firm determination
to reach the shore or perish in
the attempt.

“Alive I will not be taken!” he said,
with quiet decision; “but I trust that
Heaven will protect me from my foes,
and bring me once more to behold and
embrace my beloved mother!”

With this filial prayer upon his lips,
he softly passed through the port, and
firmly grasping the line in both hands,
he rapidly descended into the water.—
Here he hung an instant, his body immersed
to his chin, to ascertain if his
descent had been observed by any one;
for there were three hundred men asleep
and awake within the dark bowels of
the huge ship. But all was quiet, or
rather every thing indicated ignorance
of his proceedings. He could hear
the tread of the officer of the deck as
he walked up and down, and the measured
pace of the marine who stood

sentinel above the entering port; and
the low murmur of voices of the men
in conversation in various parts of the
ship, about the firing and the rocket
they had seen, with here and there
snatches of a song reached his ears.—
This state of things gave him confidence,
and letting go the cord, he dove
beneath the surface. He swam thus
until he found he had got under the
sloop's rudder, when he rose and caught
hold of the iron band, and waited to
decide what course to take from the
vessel, wishing to choose that which
would be the least likely to expose him
to the glasses of those who were on deck.
The sloop lay about a mile off, and a
a little south of the town. The island
that intervened was but half a mile distant,
but to reach it he would have to
swim against the tide, he therefore
thought it best to follow Althorp's judicious
advice, and swim down stream directly
astern. He now distinctly overheard
Sir William giving orders to keep
a sharp lookout on the-bay below. This
showed him the danger he would be
exposed to by swimming down. Although
a good swimmer and possessing
confidence in his own skill and powers
of endurance, he feared that even if he
were not discovered as he should rise to
take breath, he might possibly give out,
especially as the receding of the shore
of the bay below, would, if he went down
far, give him at least a league to swim,
before he could get under the land.

While he was thus deliberating and
hesitating, his eye fell on the life buoy,
which was suspended within three feet
of the water over the starboard davit. It
was but the act of an instant for him
to climb the rudder and with his seaman's
knife sever the cord by which it
hung. He let it drop into the water
with a dashing sound, and delaying an
instant to let the tide bear it some yards
down, and long enough to hear the
quick alarm cry of the officer of the
deck, “What is overboard?” he commenced
swimming up the stream
towards the bows, close along by the
sloop's side, and reaching the bow, he
struck boldly out for the island, now
diving and swimming a dozen yards
under the surface, and now swimming
with his head above water, but only
long enough to take air. The noise of
the uproar the fall of the buoy had occasioned
on board, reached him, and
urged him onward to secure his escape,
aided by the ruse he had adopted; for
it had occurred to him, as he hung by
the rudder, that if he cut the buoy
adrift, which in the water would look
like a man swimming, the attention of
all on board would be directed towards
it, while he himself, if he struck out
from the bows shoreward, would be unnoticed,
especially if he swam a good
deal beneath the surface. He therefore
cut it away, as we have seen, a thing
which he would not have done if he believed
he could have got away from the
sloop without attracting the attention of
the officers, whom he heard enjoined
to keep a constant watch on the water
with their night glasses. This order
led him to apprehend a failure, whether
he swam down the river, or even
quietly across to the town. He therefore
adopted the bold expedient of giving
a false alarm to the ship in the outset.

The noise of the fall of the buoy
was heard on deck, as if a man had
plunged in, and the officer of the deck
while calling out to know what it was,
ran to the stern with others, and seeing
the buoy floating down and bobbing in
the rippling water, called out in a loud
voice:

“A man overboard! Man the cut
ter!”

“I suspect it is merely a log, sir,”
remarked Althorp quietly, though his
heart was throbbing with anxiety, for
he saw the buoy and believed it to be
Martin's head upon the surface. “It is
probably a bucket.”

“It is a man, sir,” cried the quarter-master,
after levelling his glass at it.

“No doubt a deserter!” said the
purser, who was drawn to the stern
with all the other officers.

“Spring away the first cutters!”
shouted Lieutenant Alford.

The boat was soon manned. All was
excitement throughout the ship, and
every man who could get a chance was
looking astern, while all were wondering
and asking who it was.

“Go forward, Mr. Althorp, and see
if it is not the prisoner, Manwaring.”
said the Lieutenant.

“He is chained, sir,” said the quarter-master,
“and—”

“The infernal Yankee, Martin, has
broke his chains, sir, and is off!” cried
the boatswain, who on hearing the cry
of “a man overboard,” bethought him
of the young man, and at once hastening
to the spot where he had left
him, found that he had disappeared.—
Without waiting to see how he had escaped,
he ran aft, giving the report to
his superiors. By this time the cutter
had shoved off with four men and a coxswain.
Althorp had volunteered to take
command of her, resolved to prevent the
boats finding his friend, but a young
lieutenan had preceded him, and got
into the boat first. He could therefore
only hope for the safety of the brave
youth, while with his spy-glass he kept
his eye upon the dark object upon the
water, as it was borne farther and farther
astern by the tide. He wondered
at the infatuation of Manwaring in keeping
his head so constantly exposed to
view, and was thus mentally censuring
him for his imprudence, which seemed
to him like bravado, when the boatswain
made his report. Althorp now felt that
there was no hope for his friend. The
lieutenant had no sooner heard that it was
the young captive, than he became highly
excited that a young colonist should
dare to escape from a king's ship.

“Bring up three or four rockets,
gunner,” he cried to this petty officer.
“Sergeant of marines march aft; have
some of your men, with their muskets,
without a moment's delay! He shall
be shot in the water, as he desires! To
dare to escape! How did he get away.
Boatswain?”

“I have just been to see, sir,” answered
the boatswain's mate, “and find
he has broken one of his bracelets at
the wrist, but the fetters are as good
as ever, and left on the deck. He
must have unlocked 'em some way;
and besides here is a piece o' the signal
halyard, sir, belayed to the gun and
hanging into the water!”

“Then he has had aid! We have
traitors on board! Mr. Quigley, you
should have placed a marine on guard
over him!”

“You did not order it, sir, and
besides, he was so heavily chained!”

“I will have this affair sifted! But
he will not escape! The boat is fast
coming up with him! Sergeant you
need not fire upon him! I wish him to
be taken alive!”

“That is best, Mr. Welford,” answered
Sir William, appearing on the
deck. “We can then learn who his
aiders and abettors are. We must
know what traitors are among us!”

“The boats are close upon him!
We shall soon have him on board

again!” exclaimed the officer. “He
has taken his bath for nothing to-night.”

“How imprudent he was to make
such a splashing in the water,” thought
Althorp, vexed, and not a little alarmed
at the peril of his new position, if his
part in the affair should be discovered.
“But the more I look at this the more
suspicious I am that it is he! He could
not be so rash as to keep above water
in the face of such danger. It looks
more like defiance than discretion.
Yet Manwaring does not want the
latter. He is truly brave, but not a
bravado!”

“Now ignite the rocket, sir!” cried
the lieutenant of the watch; and as he
spoke the missile went hissing up into
the sky, and exploding, illumined even
the town, so that every house was visible
for a moment. By its light the boat
was seen about a cable's length astern,
and close up to the object supposed to
have been the head of the escaped
sailor. Even at the distance the sloop
was from it, it was easy to see that it
was a buoy, and there was no need of
the confirming shout of the lieutenant
in command of the boat, who called
out,

“It is only the life-buoy, sir!”

“And sure enough the life-buoy is
gone,” exclaimed Sir William, looking
over the stern to the place where it
usually hung. “This is a great alarm
about a small matter!” and thus speaking
he returned to his cabin, sarcastically
remarking, “You had best be
sure, the next time, Mr. Welford, that
your man is not a boy!”

The boat paddled slowly back, while
the officers and men laughed heartily,
when Lieutenant Welford said keenly.

“That was a buoy, it is true! but
where is the prisoner, Manwaring?
It is certain he is escaped from the
ship!”

“That is true,” remarked the officers,
recalled by his word to the positive
fact that a man had really escaped, and
within twenty minutes past; for within
that time the carpenter and gunner's
mate asseverated that they had seen
him chained between the guns.

Excitement was thereupon alive
again; and the officer in the cutter, as
it came alongsitle towing the buoy, said
the rope had been cut with a knife,
and thus roused the curiosity of all
anew.

“Pull round the ship, sir,” commanded
Lieutenant Welford, in a stern
voice; “now close and examine the
sides under the channels and bows and
rudder. He may be hanging by some
part of the vessel. It will be a disgrace
to every man in the ship if he gets off!”