An Old Sailor's Yarns

CHAPTER XIX

Master, let me take you a button hole lower; do you not see, Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lose your reputation.

The rising sun the next day beheld the good ship Albatross, under the impulse of a very gentle breeze, gliding towards the west; the Andes, over which the sun was darting his levelled beams, were distinctly visible. The flapping of the topsails against their masts, the pattering of the reef-points, and the smoothness of the water, indicated an approaching calm.

"Go aloft, one of you," said Morton, who was the officer of the morning watch, "go aloft, and see if you can make out any sail astern of us under the land."

The seaman who obeyed this order, after roosting for fifteen or twenty minutes on the main royal yard, came down and reported that he could see nothing; but that the sun shone so brightly on the water that, if any thing was within the range of sight, the reflection of the sunbeams would render it invisible. Morton could not repress a vague apprehension that there was some vessel in chace, though it would have sorely puzzled him to give his whys and wherefores. After having pointed his glass for the fiftieth time towards the eastern horizon, without seeing any thing but smooth water and the dim, blue, cloudy-looking mountains, the man at the wheel notified him that it was "eight bells," or eight o'clock. Having gone below to compare the watch in the cabin with the half-hour glass in the binnacle, he returned to the quarter-deck and called out,

"Strike the bell eight – call the watch."

The bell was struck, and one of the watch on deck, after a preliminary thumping with the large end of a handspike upon the forecastle, vociferated down the fore scuttle,

"All the starboard watch, ahoy! Rouse out there, starbowlines – show a leg or an arm!"

This last phrase designates the manner in which "turning out" of a hammock is accomplished, which hammock, a person unacquainted with such kind of sleeping accommodations, would never dream contained a live man, until one or the other of the aforementioned limbs was protruded. In a few minutes the wheel was relieved, and the crew were clustering around the galley with their tin pots, joking, and laughing, and shouting "scaldings!" as they hurried forward with their respective allowances of hot coffee.

In the mean time the quarter-deck received an accession of company. Mr. Walker came up the companion-way, gaping and rubbing his eyes, and carrying his jacket on his arm. With a short "good morning!" to Morton he threw his jacket upon the hen-coop, proceeded to the lee gangway, drew a bucket of water, and commenced his morning's ablutions. Captain Williams next came on deck, and immediately looked round upon the weather with a troubled and disappointed air, for it was now almost quite a calm. Mr. Edwards and Dr. Bolton followed him – not that they had any business on deck, or cared much about leaving the cabin or their respective state-rooms oftener than was necessary; but it is not, or was not, in my sea-going days, esteemed genteel for passengers, or any other "idlers," to stay below while the steward was occupied with the mystery of arranging the breakfast-table. Lastly, and to the surprise of the whole company, Isabella, as lovely as the morning, and dressed in the proper habiliments of her sex, ascended the companion-ladder. She was greeted with paternal affection by the veteran commander, and with sparkling eyes and a silent pressure of the hand by Morton. She received and replied to their congratulations and compliments with crimsoned cheeks and downcast eyes. The supercargo and doctor, who had, with most commendable delicacy, kept out of the way the night before, were now introduced, and after a few minutes of general conversation, the steward informed Captain Williams that breakfast was ready.

The whole party, with the exception of Mr. Walker, who was now in his turn "officer of the deck," accordingly descended to the cabin, where they found the table covered with coffee and tea, minus milk; cold salt beef, cut into slices, of a thickness that would horrify a whole community of fashionable ladies and gentlemen, allowing that so exceedingly vulgar an article of "provent" as salt beef did not previously throw them into hysterics as soon as presented to their eyes, but which slices seemed to have been cut with the prospective intention of filling up that vacuum that Nature, as far as I am acquainted with her, seems to abhor more cordially than any other vacuum whatever; that void space, I mean, that is apt to be found in a healthy human stomach after a twelve-hour's fast. There was also a broiled chicken for the express use and behoof of their fair messmate; fried pork and potatoes; a large dish of fried fish, the produce of a fishing excursion the afternoon preceding; another of boiled eggs; a third composed of pilot-bread, soaked in hot water, toasted, and buttered; biscuit, butter, and cheese.

Breakfast proceeded much as sea breakfasts generally do – that is to say, the company ate heartily: even Isabella, who had sufficient excuse for low spirits and want of appetite, yielded to the demands of hunger the most unromantic, and, in vulgar language, "spoilt the looks" of the broiled fowl before her. The meal was drawing to a close, when the steward came below with information, that Mr. Walker had seen, from the main topmast head, with his glass, a square-rigged vessel right astern, and coming up with a fresh breeze. Captain Williams and Morton exchanged looks of intelligence, but said nothing; their fair passenger, fortunately, understood not a word of the steward's intelligence; and the merchant and doctor were of that happy and enviable description of men, who, when they sit down to a well-furnished table, seem to adopt, with a slight variation, the sentiment of the poet,

"Far from my thoughts, vain world, begone,

And let my 'eating' hours alone,"

The two seamen, however anxious they might feel, finished their breakfast very composedly, and went on deck without hurry; Morton recommending to his fair deliverer to remain below for some time. In half an hour the chace was distinctly visible from the quarter-deck, and from the peculiar darkness of the water in that direction, it was evident that she had a good breeze. It was then that conjectures as to the character of the stranger were numerous, wild, and contradictory; no one thought for an instant that it was the Venganza, because they had seen her the day before with her fore-yard down and sent on shore – the idea that there might possibly be found a spare spar in the dock-yard that would answer pro tem. never, for an instant, presenting itself to their minds. A few minutes more, however, convinced them that it was indeed that "terrible ship with a terrible name;" and orders were immediately given to prepare for action as silently as possible. These orders were obeyed with joyous alacrity. A feeling of romantic gratitude to their lovely passenger was accompanied by a most chivalrous determination to "do or die" in her defence, and these sentiments pervaded the whole ship's company. Added to this exciting cause was that natural propensity to strife that Flora Mac Ivor says all men feel when placed in opposition to each other, or, as Titus Livius Patavinus hath it, they were "suopte ingenio feroces."

The clews of the topsails were lashed to the lower yard-arms; the topsail-yards slung with iron chains; round, grape, and cannister shot got up from the hold; the boarding-pikes taken down from the racks and laid at hand; the arm-chests unlocked, and their murderous contents of muskets, bayonets, pistols, cutlasses, and tomahawks or pole-axes produced; powder-horns and flasks, for priming the guns, filled and placed in readiness; rammers, sponges, and priming-wires distributed to the guns; preventer braces rove, and stoppers for the rigging sent up into the tops, or placed in different parts of the deck. The carpenter got ready his shot-plugs and top-maul; the armorer examined the locks of the fire-arms; the gunner paraded his wads, and opened the magazine beneath the cabin floor. Morton, to whom Captain Williams had deputed the charge of the two females, descended to the steerage, attended by two or three seamen, and hauled all the spare sails out of the sail-room, with which he formed a small hollow coil in the cable tier. These sails, being formed into long hard rolls and placed upon the cables, formed a rampart that, from its non-elasticity, would more effectually check the progress of a round shot than a greater thickness of oak plank.

Having finished the castle, he could not forbear passing into the cabin to see its future occupant. Isabella received him with a blush and a smile.

"What is the meaning of all this noise and bustle overhead?" said she.

"There is a strange ship in sight," said Morton, after a pause, "and we are almost sure that she has hostile intentions towards us." Isabella became pale as marble. "It is, in short, the man-of-war that was in St. Blas when we left there."

"Good God!" said the young lady, clasping her hands in agony, "what will become of us?"

"Do not allow yourself to be overcome with causeless alarm; we shall, if possible, run away; but if not, we must resort to certain arguments to convince her commander and crew of the impropriety and rudeness of their interfering in an affair that does not concern them."

"But if we are taken, what will become of you?"

"I suspect, dearest Isabella, that you will search in vain through the Albatross to find a single person, man or boy, that is prepared to admit the probability, nay, even the possibility, of such a conclusion. We are nominally inferior, but in reality superior, to our antagonist. In the mean time, I have been preparing a place of safety for you and Transita, where it is next to impossible that you should be in the way of danger."

"But you," said she, looking at him with tearful eyes.

"My life, my sweet girl, is in the hands of Him that gave it; and to His watchful care and boundless goodness I cheerfully and confidingly commit it."

"But if you are taken – such a thing is at least possible."

"Such an event is, as you say, possible. In that case, your Mexican friends must be content to work their revenge upon my dead body, for I am determined that the living Charles Morton shall never become an object for Spanish vengeance to exhaust its ingenuity upon. But I must leave you for the present. I will come below again in a few minutes, to conduct you to your citadel."

CHAPTER XX

Morton and his companions had left the prison a few minutes past ten o'clock. It was nearly one when an officer, who was up and passing through the plaza for certain good reasons best known to himself, noticed, as he approached the guard-house, that there was an unusual degree of stillness about it; no sentry challenged as he drew near, and indeed there seemed to be none on post. Surprised at this, he entered the porch, or as it is called in New England, the "pye-azza," where he found the sentry seated, as before described, and snoring most lustily. Him he attempted to awaken by a very summary process; namely, by tumbling him from his seat upon the ground; but so stupified was the fellow with the drugged wine that he had drank, that after uttering certain unintelligible growlings, he again slept and snored. Passing into the interior, the officer found the corporal and his "brave compeers" as sound asleep and as motionless as the enchanted inhabitants of a fairy castle. After bestowing upon them several sound and hearty kicks, without producing any vivifying effects, he perceived that the door of the inner room, or prison, was wide open, and the room itself as empty as – an author's pockets. On further examination he found a basket, the remains of food, three or four empty bottles and drinking-cups, one or two full bottles, and a phial containing a small quantity of dark-colored liquid, with the qualities of which he did not think it prudent to make himself acquainted by experiment upon his own person; not possessing a particle of the philosophical courage and zeal of Sir Humphrey Davy, who gulped down poisonous gases till it became a matter of astonishment and mystery to his friends, as well as himself, how he contrived to find his way back into this world, after having strolled so far beyond its limits. The phial, however ignorant he was of the nature of its contents, explained, in connection with the empty bottles, the cause of the death-like sleep of the guard.

After deliberating for an extremely short space of time (for when a man has nobody near to bother him with advice, he makes up his mind with incredible despatch), he concluded that there would be no danger in leaving the guard-house just as he found it, for sundry reasons; in the first place, the present circumstances had probably existed some hours; secondly, as there was nothing there for the guard to watch over but the empty bottles, &c. said guard might as well sleep as be awake; thirdly – but by this time he was almost at his excellency's door, and it was hardly worth while to follow any farther a line of reasons that threatened to stretch out to the crack of day, if not of doom. After abundance of vociferating and thumping, he succeeded in rousing the governor from his slumbers, and bringing him to the window, night-capped and night-gowned "proper," as the heralds say. His excellency was thunderstruck at the intelligence, and in a few minutes his household was in motion.

His two daughters had no sooner learned that the prisoners had escaped, than they hastened to the chamber of their cousin, Isabella, to communicate the joyful intelligence. To their surprise and consternation no cousin Isabella was to be found; the chamber was in its usual state, but it was immediately obvious that the bed had not been pressed that night by its lovely occupant; one or two of the drawers of a bureau, in which she had formerly kept sundry articles of clothing, were open and empty; nor was this all; the doors of a little book-case, that stood upon a table in one corner of the room, and that formerly contained thirty or forty volumes, were also open, and every volume was gone.

This circumstance, which at once convinced the two young ladies that their cousin was decidedly deranged in mind, should have been mentioned and explained in its proper place. A fortnight previous to Morton's capture, Isabella consented to put herself under his protection, and having so done, retired to her chamber to deliberate upon the how and the what she should take with her. Her jewels, that had been left her by her mother, or given her by her uncle and other relatives, were numerous, costly, and easily portable; but jewels, though they ornament beauty, do not keep it warm. Her drawers were next opened, and sundry indispensable articles of dress were selected and set aside; but while she hesitated between certain elegant and valuable dresses and others more ordinary, that her natural good sense told her were more appropriate, her eyes rested upon a volume of Milton opened at the title-page, on which was written her mother's name by that beloved parent's hand: "My dear mother's books! how could I think of leaving them behind, or any thing that was ever hers!" She closed her drawers after having carelessly thrown aside, for "sea-service," the first dresses that came to hand – her whole thoughts occupied in devising means to save what, just at that moment, seemed of vastly superior consequence. The books, by Morton's advice, were subsequently carried, two or three at a time, to Juanita's house, and thence by him conveyed carefully on board the Albatross, and safely deposited in his chest. Having settled this affair so much to her satisfaction, she used the same means to transport the greater part of her most valuable clothes to the same place, till the unfortunate capture of her lover made it necessary to encumber herself and attendant with the remainder, upon the night of her elopement and their escape.

I pride myself not a little in being particular in an affair of such delicacy. Some writers wake their heroines at dead of night, drag them, half drest, out of a third story chamber window, lead them through a thousand perils by flood, fire, and field, till the mere matter-of-fact, common sense reader is convinced that the poor girls had neither a dry thread nor a clean one upon their persons; and no "change of raiment" so much as hinted at. I scorn so ungallant an action as to compel my heroine to make a voyage nearly round the world, or within thirty degrees of longitude of it, in such a draggle-tailed and sluttish condition; so that you see, madam, I have made this digression for the sole purpose of setting your mind at ease on the score of Isabella's gowns, frocks, hose, and those other articles of the "inner temple" whose names I dare not even think of, or whose existence it would be impolite and indelicate to hint at.

The alarming fact of his niece's absence the governor fortunately did not learn till morning, or rather till late in the forenoon, he having gone towards the guard-house before his daughters visited their cousin's chamber. When arrived there, Don Gaspar was convinced, by examination of the phial, that the soldiers were under the influence of a most powerful opiate; and, furthermore, that the prisoners had obtained that opiate and the wine that it was administered in, from some person out of the prison who had access to them; and he immediately vowed vengeance the most signal and summary against the traitor, offering, at the same time, a large reward for his, her, or their apprehension. Alas, poor man! he did not know that the traitor was of his own kith and kin, his own beloved niece.

His next movement was to send an officer at full gallop to the Venganza, or rather to the landing place, commanding her captain to despatch boats to the American ship in the outer harbor, and search for the fugitives. Don Diego Pinto, the commander of the Venganza, who had obtained a spare fore-yard from the dock-yard, rigged and swayed it aloft the night that he came in, instantly concluded that the escape had been effected by the American captain, and that the Albatross had immediately sailed. Impressed with this idea, he weighed anchor forthwith, and, favored by a fresh breeze from the land, was convinced by eight o'clock that morning that his conjecture was right.

How the governor bore the news of his niece's elopement we have never been able precisely to discover, but have understood vaguely that he displayed infinitely more warm and tender feelings than he had heretofore had credit for.

CHAPTER XXI

The breeze that brought the Venganza within sight, was in a very short time felt likewise by the Albatross; but it gradually hauled to the southward, thereby giving the American the advantage of the wind, or weather-gage. Still it was evident that the Spaniard was the superior sailer, and that he might, if he chose, soon be alongside; but he seemed to be aware that preparations had been made by the Yankee commander and his crew to give him a very warm reception. Accordingly he shortened sail and tacked, with the hope of getting to windward; but in this he was foiled by the Albatross tacking also, and, in spite of all the Spaniard's manœuvring, retaining the advantage that the wind gave her.

The crew of the American were all this time quietly leaning on their guns, and watching the evolutions of their antagonist; and commenting upon every movement with as much composure as though their own ship was lying at anchor in a friendly port, and they were only looking at some ship beating into harbor.

"That old rattle-trap of a gardy coaster works tolerably well, only she's a month of Sundays swinging her head-yards, and getting her fore-tack down," said one of the seamen.

"You may well say that," said another, "and the same of his main-yard and main-tack, and jib-sheet to boot."

"Well, you can't blame him for not being in a hurry," said the boatswain, "he knows what he'll get when he hooks on to the old Albatross. When once we get fairly hold on him, I don't ask but half an hour to do his business for him: fifteen minutes to knock away some of his sticks, and send him off flanking, and fifteen minutes more to secure the guns and clear the decks up; and by that time it will be eight bells, and then we'll have our dinner and our grog, and be all ready to make sail on our course again."

"There she goes again! helm's a-tiller, jib-sheet's a-rope, and round she comes!"

"Ready about!" shouted Captain Williams, and the crew flew to their stations.

Both vessels were now heading to the westward; the Venganza, by superior sailing and frequent tacking, had gained considerably to windward; and it was evident that she would soon be alongside, though to leeward. In this situation of affairs, Captain Williams, seeing that flight was out of the question, called all hands aft.

"Lie aft there all of you, hurry aft there, men, at once," repeated the boatswain, adding, in a lower tone, "the old man's going to read us a page out of Hamilton Moore."

The men being all assembled upon the quarter-deck, Captain Williams advanced, and thus addressed them:

"Men, you see that fellow yonder that is following on after us, and know what he wants. He sails rather better than we do, and I don't see how we're going to get rid of him; and if we don't want to be plagued with him any longer, why we must fight him, that's all. I don't suppose that you will fight any the quicker or better for my making a speech to you, but I want you should know which leg you stand upon. We are nothing but a merchantman, and I don't suppose you are bound by the ship's articles to fight unless you see fit, but whether we fight or not, our fate is the same; if we are such d – d fools as to let that garlic-eating scarecrow make a prize of us without firing a gun, we shall be sent to the mines for life; but if we will only stand by each other, I'll be bail that we give him something that he can't eat. Now if you are all agreeable to that, say so, and give three cheers for the honor of the Yankee flag, and we'll fix his flint for him before the cook's dinner is ready."

This pertinent harangue was received with three roaring cheers, which were distinctly heard by the Spaniards, who were thereby convinced that the Americans were not the sort of men to be frightened into a surrender; and they, the Spaniards that is, "smelled the battle" by no means "afar off," but, on the contrary, rather nearer their noses than was altogether agreeable.

By way of commentary to his speech, the Yankee commander called to the steward to "bring up the case bottle, &c. and the molasses jug," observing, that; "although he knew that the Albatrosses didn't require any Dutch courage, the sun was over the fore-yard, and it was grog time in all Christian countries."

Jones, who by virtue of his office was always foremost at "splicing the main-brace," having compounded a tolerably stiff tumbler of blackstrap, turned to his shipmates, prefacing with the invariable commencement of a sailor's toast,

"Here's hoping that every shot we fire will make work for the doctor or carpenter."

This pithy "sentiment," as it would be called at the present day, was received with vast applause; and, having finished their grog, interspersed with similar toasts, the men quietly returned to their quarters.

During this scene Morton descended to the cabin and conducted his fair charge to her Gibraltar in the steerage. Isabella, weeping bitterly, clung to him, and Morton's heart, softened by the tears of one whom he loved so tenderly, seemed divested of all the elasticity of young hope and courage, and he began to regard the possibility of his being killed or taken prisoner as a probability; but he resisted the fast-coming weakness, and, pressing her to his bosom, tore himself from her arms, and hurried upon deck. Isabella was attended and consoled in her retirement by her faithful servant Transita, her "fidus Achates."