CHAPTER XIX.
THE SPENT SHOT.
The first few hours after a sea-fight are apt to have a great deal inthem. There was not a moment of time wasted on board the _Noank_, forthe spare spars taken from the _Arran_ were just the right things to besent up in place of the sticks which had been shattered by the fire ofthe _Lynx_. Not until they should be in place could the swift schoonershow her paces, and they had been going up even while the ocean burialswere attended to.
"This is awful news to carry home to poor Mrs. Avery," groaned Guert,as he lay in his bunk. "I don't care much for my hurts, but I wish Icould be on deck. I'm almost glad I'm wounded. I know how Nathan Halewould feel about it. He'd say it was little enough for a fellow tosuffer for his country and for liberty. I'll never forget him."
Away off there on the ocean, therefore, in a schooner bunk, in thedark, the memory of America's hero was doing its beautiful work, as ithas been doing ever since, a bright example set, as a star that willnot go down.
Many hands make light work, and the spars were all right by the nextsunrise. There was only one sail in sight when Captain Morgan came ondeck from a visit below to all his wounded men.
"That's the _Lynx_," he thought. "We must get within hail of her andfind out how Taber's gettin' on. I don't even know what her cargo is.The way Lyme Avery carried her's a wonder!"
So Captain Taber was thinking at that very hour, as he went from gun togun of the old Indiaman's batteries.
"All she wanted was men," he said, "and she'd ha' beaten us, easy. Wemust have that thirty-two pounder pivot-gun in order, first thing.I'll make a strong cruiser of her. I've a gang overhaulin' the cargo.It promises well, and there's more'n thirty thousand dollars incash.--Oh! but ain't I sick about Lyme! Best kind o' feller! Bestneighbor! Best sailor, too. He and I sailed three long v'yagestogether, and we never had an ill word on sea or land."
Every other man of the dead captain's crew was saying or thinkingsomething of the sort, and it was a blue time in spite of the victory.The excitement was all over now, and even the most reckless couldcalculate somewhat the dangers which still remained between them andhome.
Captain Ellis himself came up to the deck of the ship which he hadceased to command, for there was no reason for confining him below. Hefound that more than half his crew had volunteered to do ordinaryship-duty, at regular pay, rather than be shut up under hatches. Theremainder, however, were stubborn Britons, and refused to handle somuch as a rope under a rebel flag.
"They can't do us any harm," Captain Taber had said of the volunteers."I'll trust 'em. Besides, every man of 'em's Irish, and there's mightylittle love o' King George that side o' the Channel."
At all events, all of these sailor sons of Erin went to their messescheerfully that morning.
"Captain Taber," said Ellis, when they came together, "I never sawanything like it! Look, yonder! Your schooner's refitted! She's astaut and trim as ever!"
"She has half a dozen good ship carpenters on board," laughed Taber."They could build her over again. Our shipyards are goin' to bring outsome new p'ints on ship-buildin'."
"I wish they would," said Ellis. "Our shipwrights are half asleep. Doyou s'pose you can repair that pivot-gun? We hadn't a smith worth hissalt."
"She'll swing like new, before long," said Taber. "The man that'sfiling away at her could invent a better gearing than that is. Hecould make a watch."
Right there was one important difference, then and afterward, betweenAmerican sailors and European. It was a difference which was to beillustrated on land as well, in the records of the Patent Office atWashington, and in the wonderful development of all imaginablevarieties of mechanism.
"There she comes, the beauty!" was Taber's next remark, as the _Noank_neared them. "She can outsail anything of her size that I know of."
"She must keep out o' the way of heavy cruisers, though," said Ellis, alittle savagely. "I'd ha' beat her, myself, if I hadn't been caughtweak as I was."
A hail from Captain Morgan prevented Taber from answering, and in aminute more the two American crews were cheering each other lustily.
"What cargo do you find?" asked Morgan through his trumpet, after hehad learned that all else was well.
"All sorts!" responded Taber. "Picked up from prizes. Plenty o'water, provisions, ammunition. I can't guess where they pulled in someo' the stuff. Woollen cloths, and crockery crates, and tobacco. Itlooks as if they'd taken some Hamburg trader for an American. Youcan't say what a privateer'll do, well away at sea."
Ellis heard, and there came a queer, half-anxious grin upon his deeplylined, hardened face. He did not, in fact, look like a man who wouldhesitate long over any small moral questions of mere flags andownerships. He was a privateersman in preference to any otheroccupation, without need for the patriotic spirit which was sendinginto it the seafaring veterans of America.
"All right!" was the hearty reply from the _Noank_. "Now, Taber, wemust keep company if we can for two or three days, at least. Our twobatteries, worked together, 'd be an over match for any o' the lighterking's cruisers. We could knock one o' their ten-gun brigs all toflinders."
"I a'most hope we'll come across one," said Taber, "soon as that therethirty-two yonder'll swing on its pivot."
Two armed vessels may not make what is called a "squadron." CaptainMorgan, therefore, had not suddenly risen from the rank of first mateto that of commodore, but both the old East Indiaman and the schoonerwere undoubtedly safer because of their ability and readiness to helpeach other.
Captain Taber's cruiser, when he came to examine her, was a curiousaffair, according to later ideas of ship-building. She had beenconstructed solidly, and had a large carrying capacity. Her sides"tumbled home," or slanted inward, nobody knows what for. Her sternwas very high, as if a kind of fort were needed, rising to hold up herquarter-deck. In this, on either side, were her nine-pounders, and itmight account for their shot flying above the _Noank's_ hull. She waslower in the waist, and she piled up again, forward. Her tops werecups like those of a man-of-war, and might hold sharp-shooters in aclose fight. It is the rule to laugh, at that old style of navalarchitecture, but when the _Lynx_ had been the _Burrumpootra_ she hadbattled well with the terrible gales and seas of the Indian Ocean, andthere were legends of the way in which she had beaten off Chinese andMalay pirates. There were not only good ships but good seamen as wellin the old-fashioned days, and all the world was discovered and openedby them to commerce and civilization.
Up-na-tan considered himself the surgeon of the _Noank_, and he was agood one, so far as cuts and bruises were concerned. He and Coco heldconsultations over Guert, and there was no danger but what he would bewell attended to. He was a general favorite with the sailors, andtheir opinion of him had been lifted tremendously by his conduct at thetaking of the _Lynx_. They all declared that he had in him the makingof a good sea-captain,--as good, it might possibly be, as Lyme Averyhimself, although that was a great deal to say.
That day went by, and the next, and the next, and all in vain dideither Captain Ellis or his captors scan the horizon for any speck thatlooked like war. There were distant sails, truly, but this pair ofprivateers was inclined to let well enough alone. The fourth day foundthem well away upon the Atlantic before a ten-knot breeze, slippingalong finely, with all the wounded doing well. Guert's pike-thrust inthe leg was his worst hurt. It caused him much pain at intervals, anda great deal of fever. The cutlass blow at his shoulder had beenbroken of its force by the handle of his pike. The wooden shaft hadbeen cut in two as he parried with it, while drawing it back from hissuccessful thrust at Captain Avery's antagonist. The English swordsmanhad been a strong one, for his blade went on down to make a gash whichmight be slow in healing. It would probably have been a death strokebut for the tough pikestaff.
"You'll be out on deck, my boy, in a week or two," he had been told byCaptain Morgan, "and you're lucky it's no worse."
There was no use in fretti
ng over it. He could lie there and dream ofold times in New York, and of ships and fleets and armies. There wasno book on board for him to read, however, unless he should wish totake up his study of navigation. There he was lying in the afternoonof the fourth day, not tossing around much, for fear of hurting hiswounded leg or shoulder. He was feeling lonely, sick, impatient,discontented.
"Hullo!" he suddenly exclaimed. "What's that? Are we in a fight? Iwant to go on deck!--There! I guess that was pretty nearly a spentshot!"
It was too bad, altogether. Right through the port-hole window of thecabin had passed a round shot from so far away, apparently, that ithardly shattered the door-post upon which it then struck. It had beenwell aimed, it had hit the schooner, but it had not done any harm.
"There goes Up-na-tan's gun," said Guert, the next instant. "I don'thear the broadside guns. I guess that other firing is from the _Lynx_.She was close by us, they said. This is awful!"
He could now hear the distant, dull roar of other guns, and he said:--
"That's the British! It sounds as if we were fighting a man-of-war.Can it be we are going to be captured by 'em this time?"
He might well be nervous about it, but his guesses and fears were onlyabout halfway correct. Not many minutes earlier, the _Noank_ and the_Lynx_ had drawn toward each other, into long hailing distance, for asort of council of war. Questions and answers had gone hurriedly backand forth, until Captain Morgan had shouted:--
"We'll take her, Taber. We can spare men enough for one more prizecrew. She's a big one."
So she was, that tall three-master, floating the British flag, and shewas evidently not a frigate of King George. Most likely, they said,she was a supply ship on her way to his armies in his rebelliouscolonies.
About went the two eager privateers, and there seemed to be no reasonto doubt their ability to outsail and outfight their victim. She wascarrying a cargo so full and heavy that it pulled her down, and she waslogging along clumsily. Both of the American vessels were flying thestars and stripes. The _Lynx_ was somewhat nearer to the Englishman,and Captain Taber deemed it time to fire a shot across her bows as asignal to heave to.
The sound of that first gun was what had really awakened Guert, but hehad not at once understood it. Captain Morgan was on the point offollowing Captain Taber's example, when the big, peaceful-seemingBritish ship swung around a few points, and a lot of hitherto closedports along her side sprang open. Every one of these ports had anugly, metallic nose in it, and from each of these jumped a sheet offire, followed by thunder. At the same moment a band of brass music onthe after deck began to play "God save the King," while a longprocession of men in red uniforms streamed up from below to join a lotof others like them who were already on deck.
"Eight ports!" exclaimed Captain Morgan, staring through his glass."She may carry more guns than that! She's a British merchant ship ofthe largest size, turned into a troop-ship, and armed, I'd say, withlong twelves. Thunder! We haven't anything to do with her! Starboardyour helm, there! I'll signal Taber to keep away."
There was no need of that at all. The first heavy broadside of thestranger had hurtled toward the _Lynx_, and several of the half-spentshot had struck her. Her commander had taken warning instantly, andwas already wheeling away, so to speak, when the second Britishbroadside went so dangerously well toward the _Noank_.
"One such dose is just as good as two," remarked Captain Morgan. "I'mglad Taber has good sense. We don't want to be crippled jest now. Wecan't afford to risk a stick. We'll get away out o' range, quickestkind!"
So he did, and so did Taber. But they would by no means have done soif it had not been for a reason that was getting an explanation in thefuriously angry exclamations of the British sailor in command of thatpugnacious troop-ship. He had rapidly grown red in the face, and nowhe seemed ready to burst.
"Lost 'em! Missed 'em!" he roared, as he stamped up and down the deck."I had 'em both trapped! I let 'em come near enough before I fired agun. I'd ha' sunk 'em or sent 'em in. It's the fault o' that rascallythief at the navy-yard. He supplied us with that worthless, condemnedcontract powder. It won't pitch a shot worth tuppence. He ought to behung! I'll report him!"
The mystery of so many cannon-shot being practically spent at a fairpractice distance was completely explained. No doubt he was wrong indeclaring that his ammunition was no better than so much sea-sand, butit was not the stuff to send twelve-pound balls of iron through oak orteak bulwarks, and his cunning trap to catch the two Americanprivateers was a lamentable failure.
It was an hour of their best running before these were again withinhail of each other. Then their two commanders held a briefspeaking-trumpet conversation, congratulating each other upon havinggotten out of so serious a scrape without injury.
"Morgan," said Taber, at last, "the far northerly course, if it suitsyou. I think we'd better shape it as if we were bound for Halifax, andkeep well away from every sail we sight."
"That'll do," replied Morgan. "That there Nova Scotia garrison needssupplies, you know. We're jest the boats to bring 'em all they want.If we come up with another supply ship, though, and if she hasn't quiteso many guns, we may persuade her to go as far as Boston with us."
"No, sir! I'd say not!" called back Taber. "I feel uneasy 'boutBoston jest now. I'd ruther not try any home port but New London, andwe'd better make our run in there by night."
"All right!" said Captain Morgan. "Home it is! Heave ahead!"
Guert Ten Eyck, in his bunk, received from his friends a full accountof that day's curious adventure. The port of his cabin was quicklymended, and he could once more lie quiet and wait for his own mending.On deck there was especial matter for general discussion arising fromthe fact that all had seen a troop-ship.
"More soldiers to conquer America," they said. "It looks bad for us.The king is sending over British and Hessians, army after army. Theyare all well armed, well clothed, well fed, and there are more tofollow. What can our own used up, half-armed, half-starved, badlybeaten Continentals do against such awful odds? The truth is, we maynot find a safe port to run into."
"They can't have taken everything so soon as this," was the conclusionof Captain Morgan. "We'll feel our way in, when we get there. If allthings have gone wrong we can sail away somewhere, or we can beach theships and burn 'em, and take to the woods."