In such a time as this it is not meetThat every nice offence should bear its comment.Shakespeare
The cliffs threw their dark shadows wide on the waters, and the gloom of the evening had so far advanced as to conceal the discontent that brooded over the ordinarily open brow of Barnstable as he sprang from the rocks into the boat, and took his seat by the side of the silent pilot. “Shove off,” cried the lieutenant, in tones that his men knew must be obeyed. “A seaman's curse light on the folly that exposes planks and lives to such navigation; and all to burn some old timberman, or catch a Norway trader asleep! give way, men, give way!”
Notwithstanding the heavy and dangerous surf that was beginning to tumble in upon the rocks in an alarming manner, the startled seamen succeeded in urging their light boat over the waves, and in a few seconds were without the point where danger was most to be apprehended. Barnstable had seemingly disregarded the breakers as they passed, but sat sternly eyeing the foam that rolled by them in successive surges, until the boat rose regularly on the long seas, when he turned his looks around the bay in quest of the barge.
“Ay, Griffith has tired of rocking in his pillowed cradle,” he muttered, “and will give us a pull to the frigate, when we ought to be getting the schooner out of this hard-featured landscape. This is just such a place as one of your sighing lovers would doat on; a little land, a little water, and a good deal of rock. Damme, long Tom, but I am more than half of your mind, that an island now and then is all the terra firma that a seaman needs.”
“It's reason and philosophy, sir,” returned the sedate cockswain; “and what land there is, should always be a soft mud, or a sandy ooze, in order that an anchor might hold, and to make soundings sartin. I have lost many a deep-sea, besides hand leads by the dozen, on rocky bottoms; but give me the roadstead where a lead comes up light and an anchor heavy. There's a boat pulling athwart our forefoot, Captain Barnstable; shall I run her aboard or give her a berth, sir?”
“'Tis the barge!” cried the officer; “Ned has not deserted me, after all!”
A loud hail from the approaching boat confirmed this opinion, and in a few seconds the barge and whale-boat were again rolling by each other's side. Griffith was no longer reclining on the cushions of his seats, but spoke earnestly, and with a slight tone of reproach in his manner.
“Why have you wasted so many precious moments, when every minute threatens us with new dangers? I was obeying the signal, but I heard your oars, and pulled back to take out the pilot. Have you been successful?”
“There he is; and if he finds his way out, through the shoals, he will earn a right to his name. This bids fair to be a night when a man will need a spy-glass to find the moon. But when you hear what I have seen on those rascally cliffs, you will be more ready to excuse my delay, Mr. Griffith.”
“You have seen the true man, I trust, or we incur this hazard to an evil purpose.”
“Ay, I have seen him that is a true man, and him that is not,” replied Barnstable, bitterly; “you have the boy with you, Griffith—ask him what his young eyes have seen.”
“Shall I!” cried the young midshipman, laughing; “then I have seen a little clipper, in disguise, out sail an old man-of-war's man in a hard chase, and I have seen a straggling rover in long-togs as much like my cousin——”
“Peace, gabbler!” exclaimed Barnstable in a voice of thunder; “would you detain the boats with your silly nonsense at a time like this? Away into the barge, sir, and if you find him willing to hear, tell Mr. Griffith what your foolish conjectures amount to, at your leisure.”
The boy stepped lightly from the whale-boat to the barge, whither the pilot had already preceded him, and, as he sunk, with a mortified air, by the side of Griffith, he said, in a low voice:
“And that won't be long, I know, if Mr. Griffith thinks and feels on the coast of England as he thought and felt at home.”
A silent pressure of his hand was the only reply that the young lieutenant made, before he paid the parting compliments to Barnstable, and directed his men to pull for their ship.
The boats were separating, and the plash of the oars was already heard, when the voice of the pilot was for the first time raised in earnest.
“Hold!” he cried; “hold water, I bid ye!”
The men ceased their efforts at the commanding tones of his voice, and turning toward the whale-boat, he continued:
“You will get your schooner under way immediately, Captain Barnstable, and sweep into the offing with as little delay as possible. Keep the ship well open from the northern headland, and as you pass us, come within hail.”
“This is a clean chart and plain sailing, Mr. Pilot,” returned Barnstable; “but who is to justify my moving without orders, to Captain Munson? I have it in black and white, to run the Ariel into this feather-bed sort of a place, and I must at least have it by signal or word of mouth from my betters, before my cutwater curls another wave. The road may be as hard to find going out as it was coming in—and then I had daylight as well as your written directions to steer by.”
“Would you lie there to perish on such a night?” said the pilot, sternly. “Two hours hence, this heavy swell will break where your vessel now rides so quietly.”
“There we think exactly alike; but if I get drowned now, I am drowned according to orders; whereas, if I knock a plank out of the schooner's bottom, by following your directions, 'twill be a hole to let in mutiny, as well as sea-water. How do I know but the old man wants another pilot or two.”
“That's philosophy,” muttered the cockswain of the whale-boat, in a voice that was audible: “but it's a hard strain on a man's conscience to hold on in such an anchorage!”
“Then keep your anchor down, and follow it to the bottom,” said the pilot to himself; “it's worse to contend with a fool than a gale of wind; but if——”
“No, no, sir—no fool neither,” interrupted Griffith. “Barnstable does not deserve that epithet, though he certainly carries the point of duty to the extreme. Heave up at once, Mr. Barnstable, and get out of this bay as fast as possible.”
“Ah! you don't give the order with half the pleasure with which I shall execute it; pull away, boys—the Ariel shall never lay her bones in such a hard bed, if I can help it.”
As the commander of the schooner uttered these words with a cheering voice, his men spontaneously shouted, and the whale-boat darted away from her companion, and was soon lost in the gloomy shadows cast from the cliffs.
In the mean time, the oarsmen of the barge were not idle, but by strenuous efforts they forced the heavy boat rapidly through the water, and in a few minutes she ran alongside of the frigate. During this period the pilot, in a voice which had lost all the startling fierceness and authority it had manifested in his short dialogue with Barnstable, requested Griffith to repeat to him, slowly, the names of the officers that belonged to his ship. When the young lieutenant had complied with this request, he observed to his companion:
“All good men and true, Mr. Pilot; and though this business in which you are just now engaged may be hazardous to an Englishman, there are none with us who will betray you. We need your services, and as we expect good faith from you, so shall we offer it to you in exchange.”
“And how know you that I need its exercise?” asked the pilot, in a manner that denoted a cold indifference to the subject.
“Why, though you talk pretty good English, for a native,” returned Griffith, “yet you have a small bur-r-r in your mouth that would prick the tongue of a man who was born on the other side of the Atlantic.”
“It is but of little moment where a man is born, or how he speaks,” returned the pilot, coldly, “so that he does his duty bravely and in good faith.”
It was perhaps fortunate for the harmony of this dialogue, that the gloom, which had now increased to positive darkness, completely concealed the look of scornful irony that crossed the handsome features of the young sailor, as he replied: “True, true, so that he does his duty, as you say, in good faith. But, as Barnstable observed, you must know your road well to travel among these shoals on such a night as this. Know you what water we draw?”
“'Tis a frigate's draught, and I shall endeavor to keep you in four fathoms; less than that would be dangerous.”
“She's a sweet boat!” said Griffith, “and minds her helm as a marine watches the eye of his sergeant at a drill; but you must give her room in stays, for she fore-reaches, as if she would put out the wind's eye.”
The pilot attended, with a practised ear, to this description of the qualities of the ship that he was about to attempt extricating from an extremely dangerous situation. Not a syllable was lost on him; and when Griffith had ended, he remarked, with the singular coldness that pervaded his manner:
“That is both a good and a bad quality in a narrow channel. I fear it will be the latter to-night, when we shall require to have the ship in leading-strings.”
“I suppose we must feel our way with the lead?” said Griffith.
“We shall need both eyes and leads,” returned the pilot, recurring insensibly to his soliloquizing tone of voice. “I have been both in and out in darker nights than this, though never with a heavier draught than a half-two.”
“Then, by heaven, you are not fit to handle that ship among these rocks and breakers!” exclaimed Griffith; “your men of a light draught never know their water; 'tis the deep keel only that finds a channel;—pilot! pilot! beware how you trifle with us ignorantly; for 'tis a dangerous experiment to play at hazards with an enemy.”
“Young man, you know not what you threaten, nor whom,” said the pilot sternly, though his quiet manner still remained undisturbed; “you forget that you have a superior here, and that I have none.”
“That shall be as you discharge your duty,” said Griffith; “for if——”
“Peace!” interrupted the pilot; “we approach the ship, let us enter in harmony.”
He threw himself back on the cushions when he had said this; and Griffith, though filled with the apprehensions of suffering, either by great ignorance or treachery on the part of his companion, smothered his feelings so far as to be silent, and they ascended the side of the vessel in apparent cordiality.
The frigate was already riding on lengthened seas, that rolled in from the ocean at each successive moment with increasing violence, though her topsails still hung supinely from her yards; the air, which continued to breathe occasionally from the land, being unable to shake the heavy canvas of which they were composed.
The only sounds that were audible, when Griffith and the pilot had ascended to the gangway of the frigate, were produced by the sullen dashing of the sea against the massive bows of the ship, and the shrill whistle of the boatswain's mate as he recalled the side-boys, who were placed on either side of the gangway to do honor to the entrance of the first lieutenant and his companion.
But though such a profound silence reigned among the hundreds who inhabited the huge fabric, the light produced by a dozen battle-lanterns, that were arranged in different parts of the decks, served not only to exhibit faintly the persons of the crew, but the mingled feeling of curiosity and care that dwelt on most of their countenances.
Large groups of men were collected in the gangways, around the mainmast, and on the booms of the vessel, whose faces were distinctly visible, while numerous figures, lying along the lower yards or bending out of the tops, might be dimly traced in the background, all of whom expressed by their attitudes the interest they took in the arrival of the boat.
Though such crowds were collected in other parts of the vessel, the quarter-deck was occupied only by the officers, who were disposed according to their several ranks, and were equally silent and attentive as the remainder of the crew. In front stood a small collection of young men, who, by their similarity of dress, were the equals and companions of Griffith, though his juniors in rank. On the opposite side of the vessel was a larger assemblage of youths, who claimed Mr. Merry as their fellow. Around the capstan three or four figures were standing, one of whom wore a coat of blue, with the scarlet facings of a soldier, and another the black vestments of the ship's chaplain. Behind these, and nearer the passage to the cabin from which he had just ascended, stood the tall, erect form of the commander of the vessel.
After a brief salutation between Griffith and the junior officers, the former advanced, followed slowly by the pilot, to the place where he was expected by his veteran commander. The young man removed his hat entirely, as he bowed with a little more than his usual ceremony, and said:
“We have succeeded, sir, though not without more difficulty and delay than were anticipated.”
“But you have not brought off the pilot,” said the captain, “and without him, all our risk and trouble have been in vain.”
“He is here,” said Griffith, stepping aside, and extending his arm towards the man that stood behind him, wrapped to the chin in his coarse pea-jacket, and his face shadowed by the falling rims of a large hat, that had seen much and hard service.
“This!” exclaimed the captain; “then there is a sad mistake—this is not the man I would have, seen, nor can another supply his place.”
“I know not whom you expected, Captain Munson,” said the stranger, in a low, quiet voice; “but if you have not forgotten the day when a very different flag from that emblem of tyranny that now hangs over yon taffrail was first spread to the wind, you may remember the hand that raised it.”
“Bring here the light!” exclaimed the commander, hastily.
When the lantern was extended towards the pilot, and the glare fell strong on his features, Captain Munson started, as he beheld the calm blue eye that met his gaze, and the composed but pallid countenance of the other. Involuntarily raising his hat, and baring his silver locks, the veteran cried:
“It is he! though so changed——”
“That his enemies did not know him,” interrupted the pilot, quickly; then touching the other by the arm as he led him aside, he continued, in a lower tone, “neither must his friends, until the proper hour shall arrive.”
Griffith had fallen back to answer the eager questions of his messmates, and no part of this short dialogue was overheard by the officers, though it was soon perceived that their commander had discovered his error, and was satisfied that the proper man had been brought on board his vessel. For many minutes the two continued to pace a part of the quarter-deck, by themselves, engaged in deep and earnest discourse.
As Griffith had but little to communicate, the curiosity of his listeners was soon appeased, and all eyes were directed toward that mysterious guide, who was to conduct them from a situation already surrounded by perils, which each moment not only magnified in appearance, but increased in reality.
——“Behold the threaden sails,Borne with the invisible and creeping winds,Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,Breasting the lofty surge.”Shakespeare.
It has been already explained to the reader, that there were threatening symptoms in the appearance of the weather to create serious forebodings of evil in the breast of a seaman. When removed from the shadows of the cliffs, the night was not so dark but objects could be discerned at some little distance, and in the eastern horizon there was a streak of fearful light impending over the gloomy waters, in which the swelling outline formed by the rising waves was becoming each moment more distinct, and, consequently, more alarming. Several dark clouds overhung the vessel, whose towering masts apparently propped the black vapor, while a few stars were seen twinkling, with a sickly flame, in the streak of clear sky that skirted the ocean. Still, light currents of air occasionally swept across the bay, bringing with them the fresh odor from the shore, but their flitting irregularity too surely foretold them to be the expiring breath of the land breeze. The roaring of the surf, as it rolled on the margin of the bay, produced a dull, monotonous sound, that was only interrupted at times by a hollow bellowing, as a larger wave than usual broke violently against some cavity in the rock. Everything, in short, united to render the scene gloomy and portentous, without creating instant terror, for the ship rose easily on the long billows, without even straightening the heavy cable that held her to her anchor.
The higher officers were collected around the capstan, engaged in earnest discourse about their situation and prospects, while some of the oldest and most favored seamen would extend their short walk to the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, to catch, with greedy ears, the opinions that fell from their superiors. Numberless were the uneasy glances that were thrown from both officers and men at their commander and the pilot, who still continued their secret communion in a distant part of the vessel. Once, an ungovernable curiosity, or the heedlessness of his years, led one of the youthful midshipmen near them; but a stern rebuke from his captain sent the boy, abashed and cowering, to hide his mortification among his fellows. This reprimand was received by the elder officers as an intimation that the consultation which they beheld was to be strictly inviolate; and, though it by no means suppressed the repeated expressions of their impatience, it effectually prevented an interruption to the communications, which all, however, thought were unreasonably protracted for the occasion.
“This is no time to be talking over bearings and distances,” observed the officer next in rank to Griffith; “but we should call the hands up, and try to kedge her off while the sea will suffer a boat to live.”
“'Twould be a tedious and bootless job to attempt warping a ship for miles against a head-beating sea,” returned the first lieutenant; “but the land-breeze yet flutters aloft, and if our light sails would draw, with the aid of this ebb tide we might be able to shove her from the shore.”
“Hail the tops, Griffith,” said the other, “and ask if they feel the air above; 'twill be a hint at least to set the old man and that lubberly pilot in motion.”
Griffith laughed as he complied with the request, and when he received the customary reply to his call, he demanded in a loud voice:
“Which way have you the wind, aloft?”
“We feel a light catspaw, now and then, from the land, sir,” returned the sturdy captain of the top; “but our topsail hangs in the clewlines, sir, without winking.”
Captain Munson and his companion suspended their discourse while this question and answer were exchanged, and then resumed their dialogue as earnestly as if it had received no interruption.
“If it did wink, the hint would be lost on our betters,” said the officer of the marines, whose ignorance of seamanship added greatly to his perception of the danger, but who, from pure idleness, made more jokes than any other man in the ship. “That pilot would not receive a delicate intimation through his ears, Mr. Griffith; suppose you try him by the nose.”
“Faith, there was a flash of gunpowder between us in the barge,” returned the first lieutenant, “and he does not seem a man to stomach such hints as you advise. Although he looks so meek and quiet, I doubt whether he has paid much attention to the book of Job.”
“Why should he?” exclaimed the chaplain, whose apprehensions at least equaled those of the marine, and with a much more disheartening effect; “I am sure it would have been a great waste of time: there are so many charts of the coast, and books on the navigation of these seas, for him to study, that I sincerely hope he has been much better employed.”
A loud laugh was created at this speech among the listeners, and it apparently produced the effect that was so long anxiously desired, by putting an end to the mysterious conference between their captain and the pilot. As the former came forward towards his expecting crew, he said, is the composed, steady manner that formed the principal trait in his character:
“Get the anchor, Mr. Griffith, and make sail on the ship; the hour has arrived when we must be moving.”
The cheerful “Ay! ay! sir!” of the young lieutenant was hardly uttered, before the cries of half a dozen midshipmen were heard summoning the boatswain and his mates to their duty.
There was a general movement in the living masses that clustered around the mainmast, on the booms, and in the gangways, though their habits of discipline held the crew a moment longer in suspense. The silence was first broken by the sound of the boatswain's whistle, followed by the hoarse cry of “All hands, up anchor, ahoy!”—the former rising on the night air, from its first low mellow notes to a piercing shrillness that gradually died away on the waters; and the latter bellowing through every cranny of the ship, like the hollow murmurs of distant thunder.
The change produced by the customary summons was magical. Human beings sprang out from between the guns, rushed up the hatches, threw themselves with careless activity from the booms, and gathered from every quarter so rapidly, that in an instant the deck of the frigate was alive with men. The profound silence, that had hitherto been only interrupted by the low dialogue of the officers, was now changed for the stern orders of the lieutenants, mingled with the shriller cries of the midshipmen, and the hoarse bawling of the boatswain's crew, rising above the tumult of preparation and general bustle.
The captain and the pilot alone remained passive, in this scene of general exertion; for apprehension had even stimulated that class of officers which is called “idlers” to unusual activity, though frequently reminded by their more experienced messmates that, instead of aiding, they retarded the duty of the vessel. The bustle, however, gradually ceased, and in a few minutes the same silence pervaded the ship as before.
“We are brought-to, sir,” said Griffith, who stood overlooking the scene, holding in one hand a short speaking, trumpet, and grasping with the other one of the shrouds of the ship, to steady himself in the position he had taken on a gun.
“Heave round, sir,” was the calm reply.
“Heave round!” repeated Griffith, aloud.
“Heave round!” echoed a dozen eager voices at once, and the lively strains of a fife struck up a brisk air, to enliven the labor. The capstan was instantly set in motion, and the measured tread of the seamen was heard, as they stamped the deck in the circle of their march. For a few minutes no other sounds were heard, if we except the voice of an officer, occasionally cheering the sailors, when it was announced that they “were short;” or, in other words, that the ship was nearly over her anchor.
“Heave and pull,” cried Griffith; when the quivering notes of the whistle were again succeeded by a general stillness in the vessel.
“What is to be done now, sir?” continued the lieutenant; “shall we trip the anchor? There seems not a breath of air; and as the tide runs slack, I doubt whether the sea do not heave the ship ashore.”
There was so much obvious truth in this conjecture, that all eyes turned from the light and animation afforded by the decks of the frigate, to look abroad on the waters, in a vain desire to pierce the darkness, as if to read the fate of their apparently devoted ship from the aspect of nature.
“I leave all to the pilot,” said the captain, after he had stood a short time by the side of Griffith, anxiously studying the heavens and the ocean. “What say you, Mr. Gray?”
The man who was thus first addressed by name was leaning over the bulwarks, with his eyes bent in the same direction as the others; but as he answered he turned his face towards the speaker, and the light from the deck fell full upon his quiet features, which exhibited a calmness bordering on the supernatural, considering his station and responsibility.
“There is much to fear from this heavy ground-swell,” he said, in the same unmoved tones as before; “but there is certain destruction to us, if the gale that is brewing in the east finds us waiting its fury in this wild anchorage. All the hemp that ever was spun into cordage would not hold a ship an hour, chafing on these rocks, with a northeaster pouring its fury on her. If the powers of man can compass it, gentlemen, we must get an offing, and that speedily.”
“You say no more, sir, than the youngest boy in the ship can see for himself,” said Griffith—“ha! here comes the schooner!”
The dashing of the long sweeps in the water was now plainly audible, and the little Ariel was seen through the gloom, moving heavily under their feeble impulse. As she passed slowly under the stern of the frigate, the cheerful voice of Barnstable was first heard, opening the communications between them.
“Here's a night for spectacles, Captain Munson!” he cried; “but I thought I heard your fife, sir. I trust in God, you do not mean to ride it out here till morning?”
“I like the berth as little as yourself, Mr. Barnstable,” returned the veteran seaman, in his calm manner, in which anxiety was, however, beginning to grow evident. “We are short; but are afraid to let go our hold of the bottom, lest the sea cast us ashore. How make you out the wind?”
“Wind!” echoed the other; “there is not enough to blow a lady's curl aside. If you wait, sir, till the land-breeze fills your sails, you will wait another moon. I believe I've got my eggshell out of that nest of gray-caps; but how it has been done in the dark, a better man than myself must explain.”
“Take your directions from the pilot, Mr. Barnstable,” returned his commanding officer, “and follow them strictly and to the letter.”
A deathlike silence, in both vessels, succeeded this order; for all seemed to listen eagerly to catch the words that fell from the man on whom, even the boys now felt, depended their only hopes for safety. A short time was suffered to elapse, before his voice was heard, in the same low but distinct tones as before:
“Your sweeps will soon be of no service to you,” he said, “against the sea that begins to heave in; but your light sails will help them to get you out. So long as you can head east-and-by-north, you are doing well, and you can stand on till you open the light from that northern headland, when you can heave to and fire a gun; but if, as I dread, you are struck aback before you open the light, you may trust to your lead on the larboard tack; but beware, with your head to the southward, for no lead will serve you there.”
“I can walk over the same ground on one tack as on the other,” said Barnstable, “and make both legs of a length.”
“It will not do,” returned the pilot. “If you fall off a point to starboard from east-and-by-north, in going large, you will find both rocks and points of shoals to bring you up; and beware, as I tell you, of the starboard tack.”
“And how shall I find my way? you will let me trust to neither time, lead, nor log.”
“You must trust to a quick eye and a ready hand. The breakers only will show you the dangers, when you are not able to make out the bearings of the land. Tack in season, sir, and don't spare the lead when you head to port.”
“Ay, ay,” returned Barnstable, in a low muttering voice. “This is a sort of blind navigation with a vengeance, and all for no purpose that I can see—see! damme, eyesight is of about as much use now as a man's nose would be in reading the Bible.”
“Softly, softly, Mr. Barnstable,” interrupted his commander—for such was the anxious stillness in both vessels that even the rattling of the schooner's rigging was heard, as she rolled in the trough of the sea—“the duty on which Congress has sent us must be performed, at the hazard of our lives.”
“I don't mind my life, Captain Munson,” said Barnstable, “but there is a great want of conscience in trusting a vessel in such a place as this. However, it is a time to do, and not to talk. But if there be such danger to an easy draught of water, what will become of the frigate? had I not better play jackal, and try and feel the way for you?”
“I thank you,” said the pilot; “the offer is generous, but would avail us nothing. I have the advantage of knowing the ground well, and must trust to my memory and God's good favor. Make sail, make sail, sir, and if you succeed, we will venture to break ground.”
The order was promptly obeyed, and in a very short time the Ariel was covered with canvas. Though no air was perceptible on the decks of the frigate, the little schooner was so light that she succeeded in stemming her way over the rising waves, aided a little by the tide; and in a few minutes her low hull was just discernible in the streak of light along the horizon, with the dark outline of her sails rising above the sea, until their fanciful summits were lost in the shadows of the clouds.
Griffith had listened to the foregoing dialogue, like the rest of the junior officers, in profound silence; but when the Ariel began to grow indistinct to the eye, he jumped lightly from the gun to the deck, and cried:
“She slips off, like a vessel from the stocks! Shall I trip the anchor, sir, and follow?”
“We have no choice,” replied his captain. “You hear the question, Mr. Gray? shall we let go the bottom?”
“It must be done, Captain Munson; we may want more drift than the rest of this tide to get us to a place of safety,” said the pilot “I would give five years from a life that I know will be short, if the ship lay one mile further seaward.”
This remark was unheard by all, except the commander of the frigate, who again walked aside with the pilot, where they resumed their mysterious communications. The words of assent were no sooner uttered, however, than Griffith gave forth from his trumpet the command to “heave away!” Again the strains of the fife were followed by the tread of the men at the capstan. At the same time that the anchor was heaving up, the sails were loosened from the yards, and opened to invite the breeze. In effecting this duty, orders were thundered through the trumpet of the first lieutenant, and executed with the rapidity of thought. Men were to be seen, like spots in the dim light from the heavens, lying on every yard or hanging as in air, while strange cries were heard issuing from every part of the rigging and each spar of the vessel. “Ready the foreroyal,” cried a shrill voice, as if from the clouds; “ready the foreyard,” uttered the hoarser tones of a seaman beneath him; “all ready aft, sir,” cried a third, from another quarter; and in a few moments the order was given to “let fall.”
The little light which fell from the sky was now excluded by the falling canvas, and a deeper gloom was cast athwart the decks of the ship, that served to render the brilliancy of the lanterns even vivid, while it gave to objects outboard a more appalling and dreary appearance than before.
Every individual, excepting the commander and his associate, was now earnestly engaged in getting the ship under way. The sounds of “we're away” were repeated by a burst from fifty voices, and the rapid evolutions of the capstan announced that nothing but the weight of the anchor was to be lifted. The hauling of cordage, the rattling of blocks, blended with the shrill calls of the boatswain and his mates, succeeded; and though to a landsman all would have appeared confusion and hurry, long practice and strict discipline enabled the crew to exhibit their ship under a cloud of canvas, from her deck to the trucks, in less time than we have consumed in relating it.
For a few minutes, the officers were not disappointed by the result; for though the heavy sails flapped lazily against the masts, the light duck on the loftier spars swelled outwardly, and the ship began sensibly to yield to their influence.
“She travels! she travels!” exclaimed Griffith joyously; “ah! the hussy! she has as much antipathy to the land as any fish that swims: it blows a little gale aloft yet!”
“We feel its dying breath,” said the pilot, in low, soothing tones, but in a manner so sudden as to startle Griffith, at whose elbow they were unexpectedly uttered. “Let us forget, young man, everything but the number of lives that depend, this night, on your exertions and my knowledge.”
“If you be but half as able to exhibit the one as I am willing to make the other, we shall do well,” returned the lieutenant, in the same tone. “Remember, whatever may be your feelings, thatweare on an enemy's coast, and love it not enough to wish to lay our bones there.”
With this brief explanation they separated, the vessel requiring the constant and close attention of the officer to her movements.
The exultation produced in the crew by the progress of their ship through the water was of short duration; for the breeze that had seemed to await their motions, after forcing the vessel for a quarter of a mile, fluttered for a few minutes amid their light canvas, and then left them entirely. The quartermaster, whose duty it was to superintend the helm, soon announced that he was losing the command of the vessel, as she was no longer obedient to her rudder. This ungrateful intelligence was promptly communicated to his commander by Griffith, who suggested the propriety of again dropping an anchor.
“I refer you to Mr. Gray,” returned the captain; “he is the pilot, sir, and with him rests the safety of the vessel.”
“Pilots sometimes lose ships as well as save them,” said Griffith: “know you the man well, Captain Munson, who holds all our lives in his keeping, and so coolly as if he cared but little for the venture?”
“Mr. Griffith, I do know him; he is, in my opinion, both competent and faithful. Thus much I tell you, to relieve your anxiety; more you must not ask;—but is there not a shift of wind?”
“God forbid!” exclaimed his lieutenant; “if that northeaster catches us within the shoals, our case will be desperate indeed!”
The heavy rolling of the vessel caused an occasional expansion, and as sudden a reaction, in their sails, which left the oldest seaman in the ship in doubt which way the currents of air were passing, or whether there existed any that were not created by the flapping of their own canvas. The head of the ship, however, began to fall off from the sea, and notwithstanding the darkness, it soon became apparent that she was driving in, bodily, towards the shore.
During these few minutes of gloomy doubt, Griffith, by one of those sudden revulsions of the mind that connect the opposite extremes of feeling, lost his animated anxiety, and elapsed into the listless apathy that so often came over him, even in the most critical moments of trial and danger. He was standing with one elbow resting on his capstan, shading his eyes from the light of the battle-lantern that stood near him with one hand, when he felt a gentle pressure of the other, that recalled his recollection. Looking affectionately, though still recklessly, at the boy who stood at his side, he said:
“Dull music, Mr. Merry.”
“So dull, sir, that I can't dance to it,” returned the midshipman. “Nor do I believe there is a man in the ship who would not rather hear 'The girl I left behind me,' than those execrable sounds.”
“What sounds, boy? The ship is as quiet as the Quaker meeting in the Jerseys, before your good old grandfather used to break the charm of silence with his sonorous voice.”
“Ah! laugh at my peaceable blood, if thou wilt, Mr. Griffith,” said the arch youngster, “but remember, there is a mixture of it in all sorts of veins. I wish I could hear one of the old gentleman's chants now, sir; I could always sleep to them, like a gull in the surf. But he that sleeps to-night, with that lullaby, will make a nap of it.”
“Sounds! I hear no sounds, boy, but the flapping aloft; even that pilot, who struts the quarter-deck like an admiral, has nothing to say.”
“Is not that a sound to open a seaman's ear?”
“It is in truth a heavy roll of the surf, lad, but the night air carries it heavily to our ears. Know you not the sounds of the surf yet, younker?”
“I know it too well, Mr. Griffith, and do not wish to know it better. How fast are we tumbling in towards that surf, sir?”
“I think we hold our own,” said Griffith, rousing again; “though we had better anchor. Luff, fellow, luff—you are broadside to the sea!”
The man at the wheel repeated his former intelligence, adding a suggestion, that he thought the ship “was gathering stern way.”
“Haul up your courses, Mr. Griffith,” said Captain Munson, “and let us feel the wind.”
The rattling of the blocks was soon heard, and the enormous sheets of canvas that hung from the lower yards were instantly suspended “in the brails.” When this change was effected, all on board stood silent and breathless, as if expecting to learn their fate by the result. Several contradictory opinions were, at length, hazarded among the officers, when Griffith seized the candle from the lantern, and springing on one of the guns, held it on high, exposed to the action of the air. The little flame waved, with uncertain glimmering, for a moment, and then burned steadily, in a line with the masts. Griffith was about to lower his extended arm, when, feeling a slight sensation of coolness on his hand, he paused, and the light turned slowly toward the land, flared, flickered, and finally deserted the wick.
“Lose not a moment, Mr. Griffith,” cried the pilot aloud; “clew up and furl everything but your three topsails, and let them be double-reefed. Now is the time to fulfill your promise.”
The young man paused one moment, in astonishment, as the clear, distinct tones of the stranger struck his ears so unexpectedly; but turning his eyes to seaward, he sprang on the deck, and proceeded to obey the order, as if life and death depended on his dispatch.
“She rights! she rights, boys! ware off shore!”Song.
The extraordinary activity of Griffith, which communicated itself with promptitude to the crew, was produced by a sudden alteration in the weather. In place of the well-defined streak along the horizon, that has been already described, an immense body of misty light appeared to be moving in, with rapidity, from the ocean, while a distinct but distant roaring announced the sure approach of the tempest that had so long troubled the waters. Even Griffith, while thundering his orders through the trumpet, and urging the men, by his cries, to expedition, would pause, for instants, to cast anxious glances in the direction of the coming storm; and the faces of the sailors who lay on the yards were turned, instinctively, towards the same quarter of the heavens, while they knotted the reef-points, or passed the gaskets that were to confine the unruly canvas to the prescribed limits.
The pilot alone, in that confused and busy throng, where voice rose above voice, and cry echoed cry, in quick succession, appeared as if he held no interest in the important stake. With his eye steadily fixed on the approaching mist, and his arms folded together in composure, he stood calmly waiting the result.
The ship had fallen off, with her broadside to the sea, and was become unmanageable, and the sails were already brought into the folds necessary to her security, when the quick and heavy fluttering of canvas was thrown across the water, with all the gloomy and chilling sensations that such sounds produce, where darkness and danger unite to appall the seaman.
“The schooner has it!” cried Griffith: “Barnstable has held on, like himself, to the last moment.—God send that the squall leave him cloth enough to keep him from the shore!”
“His sails are easily handled,” the commander observed, “and she must be over the principal danger. We are falling off before it, Mr. Gray; shall we try a cast of the lead?”
The pilot turned from his contemplative posture, and moved slowly across the deck before he returned any reply to this question—like a man who not only felt that everything depended on himself, but that he was equal to the emergency.
“'Tis unnecessary,” he at length said; “'twould be certain destruction to be taken aback; and it is difficult to say, within several points, how the wind may strike us.”
“'Tis difficult no longer,” cried Griffith; “for here it comes, and in right earnest!”
The rushing sounds of the wind were now, indeed, heard at hand; and the words were hardly past the lips of the young lieutenant, before the vessel bowed down heavily to one side, and then, as she began to move through the water, rose again majestically to her upright position, as if saluting, like a courteous champion, the powerful antagonist with which she was about to contend. Not another minute elapsed, before the ship was throwing the waters aside, with a lively progress, and, obedient to her helm, was brought as near to the desired course as the direction of the wind would allow. The hurry and bustle on the yards gradually subsided, and the men slowly descended to the deck, all straining their eyes to pierce the gloom in which they were enveloped, and some shaking their heads, in melancholy doubt, afraid to express the apprehensions they really entertained. All on board anxiously waited for the fury of the gale; for there were none so ignorant or inexperienced in that gallant frigate, as not to know that as yet they only felt the infant effects of the wind. Each moment, however, it increased in power, though so gradual was the alteration, that the relieved mariners began to believe that all their gloomy forebodings were not to be realized. During this short interval of uncertainty, no other sounds were heard than the whistling of the breeze, as it passed quickly through the mass of rigging that belonged to the vessel, and the dashing of the spray that began to fly from her bows, like the foam of a cataract.
“It blows fresh,” cried Griffith, who was the first to speak in that moment of doubt and anxiety; “but it is no more than a capful of wind after all. Give us elbow-room, and the right canvas, Mr. Pilot, and I'll handle the ship like a gentleman's yacht, in this breeze.”
“Will she stay, think ye, under this sail?” said the low voice of the stranger.
“She will do all that man, in reason, can ask of wood and iron,” returned the lieutenant; “but the vessel don't float the ocean that will tack under double-reefed topsails alone, against a heavy sea. Help her with her courses, pilot, and you shall see her come round like a dancing-master.”
“Let us feel the strength of the gale first,” returned the man who was called Mr. Gray, moving from the side of Griffith to the weather gangway of the vessel, where he stood in silence, looking ahead of the ship, with an air of singular coolness and abstraction.
All the lanterns had been extinguished on the deck of the frigate, when her anchor was secured, and as the first mist of the gale had passed over, it was succeeded by a faint light that was a good deal aided by the glittering foam of the waters, which now broke in white curls around the vessel in every direction. The land could be faintly discerned, rising like a heavy bank of black fog above the margin of the waters, and was only distinguishable from the heavens by its deeper gloom and obscurity. The last rope was coiled, and deposited in its proper place, by the seamen, and for several minutes the stillness of death pervaded the crowded decks. It was evident to every one, that their ship was dashing at a prodigious rate through the waves; and as she was approaching, with such velocity, the quarter of the bay where the shoals and dangers were known to be situated, nothing but the habits of the most exact discipline could suppress the uneasiness of the officers and men within their own bosoms. At length the voice of Captain Munson was heard, calling to the pilot:
“Shall I send a hand into the chains, Mr. Gray,” he said, “and try our water?”
Although this question was asked aloud, and the interest it excited drew many of the officers and men around him, in eager impatience for his answer, it was unheeded by the man to whom it was addressed. His head rested on his hand, as he leaned over the hammock-cloths of the vessel, and his whole air was that of one whose thoughts wandered from the pressing necessity of their situation. Griffith was among those who had approached the pilot; and after waiting a moment, from respect, to hear the answer to his commander's question, he presumed on his own rank, and leaving the circle that stood at a little distance, stepped to the side of the mysterious guardian of their lives.
“Captain Munson desires to know whether you wish a cast of the lead?” said the young officer, with a little impatience of manner. No immediate answer was made to this repetition of the question, and Griffith laid his hand unceremoniously on the shoulder of the other, with an intent to rouse him before he made another application for a reply, but the convulsive start of the pilot held him silent in amazement.
“Fall back there,” said the lieutenant, sternly; to the men, who were closing around them in compact circle; “away with you to your stations, and see all clear for stays.” The dense mass of heads dissolved, at this order, like the water of one of the waves commingling with the ocean, and the lieutenant and his companions were left by themselves.
“This is not a time for musing, Mr. Gray,” continued Griffith; “remember our compact, and look to your charge—is it not time to put the vessel in stays? of what are you dreaming?”
The pilot laid his hand on the extended arm of the lieutenant, and grasped it with a convulsive pressure, as he answered:
“'Tis a dream of reality. You are young, Mr. Griffith, nor am I past the noon of life; but should you live fifty years longer, you never can see and experience what I have encountered in my little period of three-and-thirty years!”
A good deal astonished at this burst of feeling, so singular at such a moment, the young sailor was at a loss for a reply; but as his duty was uppermost in his thoughts, he still dwelt on the theme that most interested him.
“I hope much of your experience has been on this coast, for the ship travels lively,” he said, “and the daylight showed us so much to dread, that we do not feel over-valiant in the dark. How much longer shall we stand on, upon this tack?”
The pilot turned slowly from the side of the vessel, and walked towards the commander of the frigate, as he replied, in a tone that seemed deeply agitated by his melancholy reflections:
“You have your wish, then; much, very much of my early life was passed on this dreaded coast. What to you is all darkness and gloom, to me is as light as if a noon-day sun shone upon it. But tack your ship, sir, tack your ship; I would see how she works before we reach the point where shemustbehave well, or we perish.”
Griffith gazed after him in wonder, while the pilot slowly paced the quarter-deck, and then, rousing from his trance, gave forth the cheering order that called each man to his station, to perform the desired evolution. The confident assurances which the young officer had given to the pilot respecting the qualities of his vessel and his own ability to manage her, were fully realized by the result. The helm was no sooner put a-lee, than the huge ship bore up gallantly against the wind, and, dashing directly through the waves, threw the foam high into the air, as she looked boldly into the very eye of the wind; and then, yielding gracefully to its power, she fell off on the other tack, with her head pointed from those dangerous shoals that she had so recently approached with such terrifying velocity. The heavy yards swung round, as if they had been vanes to indicate the currents of the air; and in a few moments the frigate again moved, with stately progress, through the water, leaving the rocks and shoals behind her on one side of the bay, but advancing towards those that offered equal danger on the other.
During this time the sea was becoming more agitated, and the violence of the wind was gradually increasing. The latter no longer whistled amid the cordage of the vessel, but it seemed to howl, surlily, as it passed the complicated machinery that the frigate obtruded on its path. An endless succession of white surges rose above the heavy billows, and the very air was glittering with the light that was disengaged from the ocean. The ship yielded, each moment, more and more before the storm, and in less than half an hour from the time that she had lifted her anchor, she was driven along with tremendous fury by the full power of a gale of wind. Still the hardy and experienced mariners who directed her movements held her to the course that was necessary to their preservation, and still Griffith gave forth, when directed by their unknown pilot, those orders that turned her in the narrow channel where alone safety was to be found.
So far, the performance of his duty appeared easy to the stranger, and he gave the required directions in those still, calm tones, that formed so remarkable a contrast to the responsibility of his situation. But when the land was becoming dim, in distance as well as darkness, and the agitated sea alone was to be discovered as it swept by them in foam, he broke in upon the monotonous roaring of the tempest with the sounds of his voice, seeming to shake off his apathy, and rouse himself to the occasion.
“Now is the time to watch her closely, Mr. Griffith,” he cried; “here we get the true tide and the real danger. Place the best quartermaster of your ship in those chains, and let an officer stand by him, and see that he gives us the right water.”
“I will take that office on myself,” said the captain; “pass a light into the weather main-chains.”
“Stand by your braces!” exclaimed the pilot, with startling quickness. “Heave away that lead!”
These preparations taught the crew to expect the crisis, and every officer and man stood in fearful silence, at his assigned station, awaiting the issue of the trial. Even the quartermaster at the cun gave out his orders to the men at the wheel, in deeper and hoarser tones than usual, as if anxious not to disturb the quiet and order of the vessel.
While this deep expectation pervaded the frigate, the piercing cry of the leadsman, as he called “By the mark seven,” rose above the tempest, crossed over the decks, and appeared to pass away to leeward, borne on the blast like the warnings of some water-spirit.
“'Tis well,” returned the pilot, calmly; “try it again.”
The short pause was succeeded by another cry, “And a half-five!”
“She shoals! she shoals!” exclaimed Griffith: “keep her a good full.”
“Ay! you must hold the vessel in command, now,” said the pilot, with those cool tones that are most appalling in critical moments because they seem to denote most preparation and care.
The third call, “By the deep four,” was followed by a prompt direction from the stranger to tack.
Griffith seemed to emulate the coolness of the pilot, in issuing the necessary orders to execute this manoeuvre.
The vessel rose slowly from the inclined position into which she had been forced by the tempest, and the sails were shaking violently, as if to release themselves from their confinement, while the ship stemmed the billows, when the well-known voice of the sailing-master was heard shouting from the forecastle:
“Breakers! breakers, dead ahead!”
This appalling sound seemed yet to be lingering about the ship, when a second voice cried:
“Breakers on our lee bow!”
“We are in a bite of the shoals, Mr. Gray,” cried the commander. “She loses her way; perhaps an anchor might hold her.”
“Clear away that best bower!” shouted Griffith through his trumpet.
“Hold on!” cried the pilot, in a voice that reached the very hearts of all who heard him; “hold on everything.”
The young man turned fiercely to the daring stranger who thus defied the discipline of his vessel, and at once demanded:
“Who is it that dares to countermand my orders? Is it not enough that you run the ship into danger, but you must interfere to keep her there? If another word——”
“Peace, Mr. Griffith,” interrupted the captain, bending from the rigging, his gray locks blowing about in the wind and adding a look of wildness to the haggard care that he exhibited by the light of his lantern; “yield the trumpet to Mr. Gray; he alone can save us.”
Griffith threw his speaking-trumpet on the deck, and as he walked proudly away, muttered in bitterness of feeling:
“Then all is lost, indeed! and among the rest the foolish hopes with which I visited this coast.”
There was, however, no time for reply; the ship had been rapidly running into the wind, and as the efforts of the crew were paralyzed by the contradictory orders they had heard, she gradually lost her way, and in a few seconds all her sails were taken aback.
Before the crew understood their situation the pilot had applied the trumpet to his mouth, and in a voice that rose above the tempest, he thundered forth his orders. Each command was given distinctly, and with a precision that showed him to be master of his profession. The helm was kept fast, the head-yards swung up heavily against the wind, and the vessel was soon whirling round on her heel, with a retrograde movement.
Griffith was too much of a seaman not to perceive that the pilot had seized, with a perception almost intuitive, the only method that promised to extricate the vessel from her situation. He was young, impetuous, and proud—but he was also generous. Forgetting his resentment and his mortification, he rushed forward among the men, and, by his presence and example, added certainty to the experiment. The ship fell off slowly before the gale, and bowed her yards nearly to the water, as she felt the blast pouring its fury on her broadside, while the surly waves beat violently against her stern, as if in reproach at departing from her usual manner of moving.
The voice of the pilot, however, was still heard, steady and calm, and yet so clear and high as to reach every ear; and the obedient seamen whirled the yards at his bidding in despite of the tempest, as if they handled the toys of their childhood. When the ship had fallen off dead before the wind, her head-sails were shaken, her after-yards trimmed, and her helm shifted, before she had time to run upon the danger that had threatened, as well to leeward as to windward. The beautiful fabric, obedient to her government, threw her bows up gracefully towards the wind again; and, as her sails were trimmed, moved out from among the dangerous shoals, in which she had been embayed, as steadily and swiftly as she had approached them.
A moment of breathless astonishment succeeded the accomplishment of this nice manoeuvre, but there was no time for the usual expressions of surprise. The stranger still held the trumpet, and continued to lift his voice amid the howlings of the blast, whenever prudence or skill required any change in the management of the ship. For an hour longer there was a fearful struggle for their preservation, the channel becoming at each step more complicated, and the shoals thickening around the mariners on every side. The lead was cast rapidly, and the quick eye of the pilot seemed to pierce the darkness with a keenness of vision that exceeded human power. It was apparent to all in the vessel that they were under the guidance of one who understood the navigation thoroughly, and their exertions kept pace with their reviving confidence. Again and again the frigate appeared to be rushing blindly on shoals where the sea was covered with foam, and where destruction would have been as sudden as it was certain, when the clear voice of the stranger was heard warning them of the danger, and inciting them to their duty. The vessel was implicitly yielded to his government; and during those anxious moments when she was dashing the waters aside, throwing the spray over her enormous yards, each ear would listen eagerly for those sounds that had obtained a command over the crew that can only be acquired, under such circumstances, by great steadiness and consummate skill. The ship was recovering from the inaction of changing her course, in one of those critical tacks that she had made so often, when the pilot, for the first time, addressed the commander of the frigate, who still continued to superintend the all-important duty of the leadsman.
“Now is the pinch,” he said, “and if the ship behaves well, we are safe—but if otherwise, all we have yet done will be useless.”
The veteran seaman whom he addressed left the chains at this portentous notice, and calling to his first lieutenant, required of the stranger an explanation of his warning.
“See you yon light on the southern headland?” returned the pilot; “you may know it from the star near it?—by its sinking, at times, in the ocean. Now observe the hummock, a little north of it, looking like a shadow in the horizon—'tis a hill far inland. If we keep that light open from the hill, we shall do well—but if not, we surely go to pieces.”
“Let us tack again,” exclaimed the lieutenant.
The pilot shook his head, as he replied:
“There is no more tacking or box-hauling to be done tonight. We have barely room to pass out of the shoals on this course; and if we can weather the 'Devil's Grip,' we clear their outermost point—but if not, as I said before, there is but an alternative.”
“If we had beaten out the way we entered,” exclaimed Griffith, “we should have done well.”
“Say, also, if the tide would have let us do so,” returned the pilot, calmly. “Gentlemen, we must be prompt; we have but a mile to go, and the ship appears to fly. That topsail is not enough to keep her up to the wind; we want both jib and mainsail.”
“'Tis a perilous thing to loosen canvas in such a tempest!” observed the doubtful captain.
“It must be done,” returned the collected stranger; “we perish without it—see the light already touches the edge of the hummock; the sea casts us to leeward.”
“It shall be done,” cried Griffith, seizing the trumpet from the hand of the pilot.
The orders of the lieutenant were executed almost as soon as issued; and, everything being ready, the enormous folds of the mainsail were trusted loose to the blast. There was an instant when the result was doubtful; the tremendous threshing of the heavy sail seemed to bid defiance to all restraint, shaking the ship to her centre; but art and strength prevailed, and gradually the canvas was distended, and bellying as it filled, was drawn down to its usual place by the power of a hundred men. The vessel yielded to this immense addition of force, and bowed before it like a reed bending to a breeze. But the success of the measure was announced by a joyful cry from the stranger, that seemed to burst from his inmost soul.
“She feels it! she springs her luff! observe,” he said, “the light opens from the hummock already: if she will only bear her canvas we shall go clear.”
A report, like that of a cannon, interrupted his exclamation, and something resembling a white cloud was seen drifting before the wind from the head of the ship, till it was driven into the gloom far to leeward.
“'Tis the jib, blown from the bolt-ropes,” said the commander of the frigate. “This is no time to spread light duck—but the mainsail may stand it yet.”
“The sail would laugh at a tornado,” returned the lieutenant; “but the mast springs like a piece of steel.”
“Silence all!” cried the pilot. “Now, gentlemen, we shall soon know our fate. Let her luff—luff you can!”
This warning effectually closed all discourse, and the hardy mariners, knowing that they had already done all in the power of man to insure their safety, stood in breathless anxiety, awaiting the result. At a short distance ahead of them the whole ocean was white with foam, and the waves, instead of rolling on in regular succession, appeared to be tossing about in mad gambols. A single streak of dark billows, not half a cable's length in width, could be discerned running into this chaos of water; but it was soon lost to the eye amid the confusion of the disturbed element. Along this narrow path the vessel moved more heavily than before, being brought so near the wind as to keep her sails touching. The pilot silently proceeded to the wheel, and, with his own hands, he undertook the steerage of the ship. No noise proceeded from the frigate to interrupt the horrid tumult of the ocean; and she entered the channel among the breakers, with the silence of a desperate calmness. Twenty times, as the foam rolled away to leeward, the crew were on the eve of uttering their joy, as they supposed the vessel past the danger; but breaker after breaker would still heave up before them, following each other into the general mass, to check their exultation. Occasionally, the fluttering of the sails would be heard; and when the looks of the startled seamen were turned to the wheel, they beheld the stranger grasping its spokes, with his quick eye glancing from the water to the canvas. At length the ship reached a point where she appeared to be rushing directly into the jaws of destruction, when suddenly her course was changed, and her head receded rapidly from the wind. At the same instant the voice of the pilot was heard shouting:
“Square away the yards!—in mainsail!”
A general burst from the crew echoed, “Square away the yards!” and, quick as thought, the frigate was seen gliding along the channel before the wind. The eye had hardly time to dwell on the foam, which seemed like clouds driving in the heavens, and directly the gallant vessel issued from her perils, and rose and fell on the heavy waves of the sea.
The seamen were yet drawing long breaths, and gazing about them like men recovered from a trance, when Griffith approached the man who had so successfully conducted them through their perils. The lieutenant grasped the hand of the other, as he said:
“You have this night proved yourself a faithful pilot, and such a seaman as the world cannot equal.”
The pressure of the hand was warmly returned by the unknown mariner, who replied:
“I am no stranger to the seas, and I may yet find my grave in them. But you, too, have deceived me; you have acted nobly, young man, and Congress——”
“What of Congress?” asked Griffith, observing him to pause.
“Why, Congress is fortunate if it has many such ships as this,” said the stranger, coldly, walking away toward the commander.
Griffith gazed after him a moment in surprise; but, as his duty required his attention, other thoughts soon engaged his mind.