CHAPTER XV.
A COMING STORM.
There had been a morning, not many days after the _Noank_ sailed awayfrom Porto Rico, when the gunners of the seaward battery of FortGriswold, New London, ran hastily to their cannon. They put in powderonly, and quickly they were firing a salute of welcome, in response tothe arrival guns of a handsome bark that was entering the harbor mouth.She was under full sail, she carried the American flag, and with it shealso floated the well-known private signal of Captain Avery and the_Noank_.
"Lyme's taken a big prize!" shouted voice after voice in the fort,while all the people within hearing of the guns understood that theywere roaring good news only. Men in shops dropped their tools.Teamsters unhitched their horses from loaded sleighs, to mount andhurry into town. Fishermen pulled in their lines. Women put awaytheir knitting or left their carding and their looms. Such a rousingannouncement of stirring news from the sea could not be disregarded,and the excitement grew apace.
An hour or so later Captain Sam Prentice and some of his men were onthe central wharf, shaking hands with old neighbors until their ownwere lame, and telling the story of the old whaling schooner among theWest Indies.
"Samuel," remarked Rachel Tarns, "thy story promiseth to be a long one.Thee had better hold thy tongue a moment, and turn thy gray head to seewhat cometh behind thee."
"Sam! Sam! I'm here!"
"There!" said the old Quakeress, dryly. "It was on my mind that hiswife could stop his talking. So she squeezeth him not to death, he maythen hug his daughters."
"Glory to God!" shouted good Mrs. Ten Eyck. "My son is safe! Not oneof our men has been killed."
"Anneke," suggested Rachel Tarns, "thee may also thank Him that they donot seem to have been led to the killing of other people."
"That isn't jest so," said Sam; "we saved a ship-load of Spaniards fromsome pirates, and we had to kill a good many of the pirates. We didn'treally hurt anybody else."
"I trust thy God will forgive thee concerning those wicked men," saidRachel. "He slayeth the wicked in their wickedness. Thee did nowrong. I think it was a friendly and righteous thing for thee to do.I once had many that were dear to me murdered at sea by those devilishdestroyers."
"No mercy for pirates!" shouted more voices than one.
"We didn't have to show any," said Sam. "I can't tell it, jest now."
"The ship thou hast taken seemeth a fine one," said Rachel. "How didthee manage to escape the war vessels of thy good king?"
"Oh! 'Bout that?" he replied. "We had the best kind of luck. Therewasn't a cruiser off Nantucket. We came along as safe as a mackerelsmack. It was a kind of wonder, though, that we didn't sight asolitary's king's flag hereaway."
"That's explained," he was told by a white-headed fisherman. "TheBritish are goin' after the Continentals down Philadelfy way, and alltheir cruisers are called off to Delaware Bay and the Chesapeake. Someof 'em's ferryin' troops, ye know. We can't say, yit, as to whether ornot Washington has licked 'em. Anyhow, things ain't as bad as theywas."
Endless news telling was to come, evidently, concerning events on shoreas well as on the sea, and there could be no long lingering at thewharf. Every sailor that could be spared from the ship had somebodyeagerly waiting for him, and there were many gladdened households thatday.
"This is getting to be a thieves' harbor," remarked Rachel Tarns to agroup of which she was the centre. "The wicked rebels against our goodking are stealing much. This is the nineteenth British vessel thathath been brought in hither. I trust that all ships designing to enterthis port under the American flag will arrive safely. It would be apity if any of them should be wrecked or otherwise prevented."
She had other things as kindly to say and sincere wishes to expressconcerning whatever shipping might here and there be under the flag ofEngland. Neither did she forget to extend her benevolence to the tentsin all the camps of George the Third.
Those who listened to her were plainly in sympathy with all herfriendly or Quakerish aspirations, and it appeared as if she were evena favorite.
After that, indeed, as week after week went by, her hopes and wisheswere remarkably fulfilled, for there were other Yankee privateers ascapable and as busy as the _Noank_. Some of them were also much largercraft with heavier armaments. Prize after prize came in, and therewere New London merchants whose trade promised to rival that of theancient house of Opdyke Brothers, of the port of Brest.
Throughout all New England, throughout the greater part of New York,there was undisturbed security. The war was touching the northerlyedge of Pennsylvania, and there were savage raids into some districtsof that colony. Large areas of New Jersey were desolated, and so wereparts of South Carolina and Georgia where the Tory element was strong.The western frontier of New York was severely harried by the Iroquois.The counties of that state nearest the city of New York were entirelyruined.
The farmers of the Mohawk Valley gathered their summer crops safely,but toward them and toward the rebel stronghold at Albany, where thelegislature was sitting, there was an avalanche of danger coming downfrom the north. It was well understood that even the forces under theBritish generals in the Middle States were not considered so effective,so well furnished, so sure of winning speedy victories, as were thechosen regiments to be led by General Burgoyne for a crushing blow atthe heart of the rebellion. He was to be reenforced by the entirepower of the Six Nations and the Hurons. If he should succeed, as heand his admirers believed he would, his army would obtain completepossession of New York and New England. All the other colonies wouldthen give up in despair, and the Continental army would disband orsurrender.
The British campaign and its intended consequences were thoroughlydiscussed by the New England people, and a considerable number of themvery promptly determined to visit their friends in Albany or in Vermont.
The shore people were deeply interested, for, in addition to all otherconsiderations, their entire sea-going fleet was at stake. No moreBritish prizes would then be brought, for instance, to Boston or NewLondon, and all the privateers at sea would be hopelessly forfeited tothe crown. All their prizes in European ports would share the samefate. One, however, was now on its homeward way in charge of VineAvery, promoted from third mate to skipper. He was handling his shipvery well, but he as yet knew very little about her cargo. His orderswere to let the taking account of that wait until he should be safe inport.
"The main thing," he had been told by his father, "is to git there.You've a gantlet to run that's thousands o' miles long, and yourchances are only jest about even."
"I'll make 'em a good deal more'n even!" Vine had replied, and he hadsailed away full confidently.
Three days after the _Noank_ and the _Killarney_ parted company, therewas a great stir in a fishing village on the Irish coast. A strangeschooner was tacking into the cove in front of the village, and such athing as that did not happen every day. All the cabins were emptied atonce. Even the babies, of which there seemed to be a large number,were carried to the shore by their mothers that they might not losethis chance to see something.
The schooner furled her sails, and dropped her anchor, while herprobable or improbable character was undergoing vigorous discussion allalong the beach. Not a soul on board the _Noank_, among her crew, atleast, could have understood the primitive Erse dialect in which thefisher people told their opinions of her and the boat-loads of men andwomen that were quickly put out from her toward the shore. More andmore extraordinary became the clatter after the passengers were landedand the boats pulled away for their next cargoes. Trip after trip wasmade, and all the while there was a vast amount of kindly pityexpressed, most of it in Erse, but much in Irish-English, for CaptainSyme and all his miscellaneous ship's company. Quite an erroneousopinion appeared to prevail that the American pirates had murdered alltheir captives entirely before landing them.
Here they were, now, however, not a hair of their heads injured, andCaptain Syme even thanked Captain A
very, the privateersman, for havingtreated him and his so very well.
"We shall find our way to Belfast, sir," he said. "Just how we are totransport them all, I don't know, but the neighboring authorities willtake care of that. I shall have them notified at once. You'd betterlook out for yourself."
"All right," laughed Captain Avery, "but I'm less afraid of a constablethan I would be of a three-master with two tiers of guns. Not many o'them in shore, I guess."
Captain Syme had his hands full, he said, and away he went withoututtering aloud the reply that was so near his lips: "Three-master?Yes, you rebel pirate! A seventy-four and you and your schooner withinpoint-blank range!"