“Had I been any god of power, I wouldHave sunk the sea within the earth, ereIt should the good ship so have swallowed.”Tempest.
The arms of Dillon were released from their confinement by the cockswain, as a measure of humane caution against accidents, when they entered the surf; and the captive now availed himself of the circumstance to bury his features in the folds of his attire, when he brooded over the events of the last few hours with that mixture of malignant passion and pusillanimous dread of the future, that formed the chief ingredients in his character. From this state of apparent quietude neither Barnstable nor Tom seemed disposed to rouse him by their remarks, for both were too much engaged with their own gloomy forebodings, to indulge in any unnecessary words. An occasional ejaculation from the former, as if to propitiate the spirit of the storm, as he gazed on the troubled appearance of the elements, or a cheering cry from the latter to animate his crew, alone were heard amid the sullen roaring of the waters, and the mournful whistling of the winds that swept heavily across the broad waste of the German Ocean. There might have been an hour consumed thus, in a vigorous struggle between the seamen and the growing billows, when the boat doubled the northern headland of the desired haven, and shot, at once, from its boisterous passage along the margin of the breakers into the placid waters of the sequestered bay, The passing blasts were still heard rushing above the high lands that surrounded, and, in fact, formed, the estuary; but the profound stillness of deep night pervaded the secret recesses, along the unruffled surface of its waters. The shadows of the hills seemed to have accumulated, like a mass of gloom, in the centre of the basin, and though every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was in vain that the anxious seamen endeavored to discover their little vessel through its density. While the boat glided into this quiet scene, Barnstable anxiously observed:
“Everything is as still as death.”
“God send it is not the stillness of death!” ejaculated the cockswain. “Here, here,” he continued, speaking in a lower tone, as if fearful of being overheard, “here she lies, sir, more to port; look into the streak of clear sky above the marsh, on the starboard hand of the wood, there; that long black line is her maintopmast; I know it by the rake; and there is her night-pennant fluttering about that bright star; ay, ay, sir, there go our own stars aloft yet, dancing among the stars in the heavens! God bless her! God bless her! she rides as easy and as quiet as a gull asleep!”
“I believe all in her sleep too,” returned his commander. “Ha! by heaven, we have arrived in good time: the soldiers are moving!”
The quick eye of Barnstable had detected the glimmering of passing lanterns, as they flitted across the embrasures of the battery, and at the next moment the guarded but distinct sounds of an active bustle on the decks of the schooner were plainly audible. The lieutenant was rubbing his hands together, with a sort of ecstasy, that probably will not be understood by the great majority of our readers, while long Tom was actually indulging in a paroxysm of his low spiritless laughter, as these certain intimations of the safety of the Ariel, and of the vigilance of her crew, were conveyed to their ears; when the whole hull and taper spars of their floating home became unexpectedly visible, and the sky, the placid basin, and the adjacent hills, were illuminated by a flash as sudden and as vivid as the keenest lightning. Both Barnstable and his cockswain seemed instinctively to strain their eyes towards the schooner, with an effort to surpass human vision; but ere the rolling reverberations of the report of a heavy piece of ordnance from the heights had commenced, the dull, whistling rush of the shot swept over their heads, like the moaning of a hurricane, and was succeeded by the plash of the waters, which was followed, in a breath, by the rattling of the mass of iron, as it bounded with violent fury from rock to rock, shivering and tearing the fragments that lined the margin of the bay.
“A bad aim with the first gun generally leaves your enemy clean decks,” said the cockswain, with his deliberate sort of philosophy; “smoke makes but dim spectacles; besides, the night always grows darkest as you call off the morning watch.”
“That boy is a miracle for his years!” rejoined the delighted lieutenant. “See, Tom, the younker has shifted his berth in the dark, and the Englishmen have fired by the day-range they must have taken, for we left him in a direct line between the battery and yon hummock! What would have become of us, if that heavy fellow had plunged upon our decks, and gone out below the water-line?”
“We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our metal and kentledge would have taken us down,” responded Tom; “such a point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and not even left the marines time to say a prayer!—tend bow there!”
It is not to be supposed that the crew of the whale-boat continued idle during this interchange of opinions between the lieutenant and his cockswain; on the contrary, the sight of their vessel acted on them like a charm, and, believing that all necessity for caution was now over, they had expended their utmost strength in efforts that had already brought them, as the last words of Tom indicated, to the side of the Ariel. Though every nerve of Barnstable was thrilling with the excitement produced by his feelings passing from a state of the most doubtful apprehension to that of a revived and almost confident hope of effecting his escape, he assumed the command of his vessel with all that stern but calm authority, that seamen find is most necessary to exert in the moments of extremest danger. Any one of the heavy shot that their enemies continued to hurl from their heights into the darkness of the haven he well knew must prove fatal to them, as it would, unavoidably, pass through the slight fabric of the Ariel, and open a passage to the water that no means he possessed could remedy.—His mandates were, therefore, issued with a full perception of the critical nature of the emergency, but with that collectedness of manner, and intonation of voice, that were best adapted to enforce a ready and animated obedience. Under this impulse, the crew of the schooner soon got their anchor freed from the bottom, and, seizing their sweeps, they forced her by their united efforts directly in the face of the battery, under that shore whose summit was now crowned with a canopy of smoke, that every discharge of the ordnance tinged with dim colors, like the faintest tints that are reflected from the clouds towards a setting sun. So long as the seamen were enabled to keep their little bark under the cover of the hill, they were, of course, safe; but Barnstable perceived, as they emerged from its shadow, and were drawing nigh the passage which led into the ocean, that the action of his sweeps would no longer avail them against the currents of air they encountered, neither would the darkness conceal their movements from his enemy, who had already employed men on the shore to discern the position of the schooner. Throwing off at once, therefore, all appearance of disguise, he gave forth the word to spread the canvas of his vessel, in his ordinary cheerful manner.
“Let them do their worst now, Merry,” he added; “we have brought them to a distance that I think will keep their iron above water, and we have no dodge about us, younker!”
“It must be keener marksmen than the militia, or volunteers, or fencibles, or whatever they call themselves, behind yon grass-bank, to frighten the saucy Ariel from the wind,” returned the reckless boy; “but why have you brought Jonah aboard us again, sir? Look at him by the light of the cabin lamp; he winks at every gun, as if he expected the shot would hull his own ugly yellow physiognomy. And what tidings have we, sir, from Mr. Griffith and the marine?”
“Name him not,” said Barnstable, pressing the shoulder on which he lightly leaned, with a convulsive grasp, that caused the boy to yield with pain; “name him not, Merry; I want my temper and my faculties at this moment undisturbed, and thinking of the wretch unfits me for my duty. But, there will come a time! Go forward, sir; we feel the wind, and have a narrow passage to work through.”
The boy obeyed a mandate which was given in the usual prompt manner of their profession, and which, he well understood, was intended to intimate that the distance which years and rank had created between them, but which Barnstable often chose to forget while communing with Merry, was now to be resumed. The sails had been loosened and set; and, as the vessel approached the throat of the passage, the gale, which was blowing with increasing violence, began to make a very sensible impression on the light bark. The cockswain, who, in the absence of most of the inferior officers, had been acting, on the forecastle, the part of one who felt, from his years and experience, that he had some right to advise, if not to command, at such a juncture, now walked to the station which his commander had taken, near the helmsman, as if willing to place himself in the way of being seen.
“Well, Master Coffin,” said Barnstable, who well understood the propensity his old shipmate had to commune with him on all important occasions, “what think you of the cruise now? Those gentlemen on the hill make a great noise, but I have lost even the whistling of their shot; one would think they could see our sails against the broad band of light which is opening to seaward.”
“Ay, ay, sir, they see us, and mean to hit us too; but we are running across their fire, and that with a ten-knot breeze; but, when we heave in stays, and get in a line with their guns, we shall see, and it may be feel, more of their work than we do now; a thirty-two an't trained as easily as a fowling-piece or a ducking-gun.”
Barnstable was struck with the truth of this observation; but as there existed an immediate necessity for placing the schooner in the very situation to which the other alluded, he gave his orders at once, and the vessel came about, and ran with her head pointing towards the sea, in as short a time as we have taken to record it.
“There, they have us now, or never,” cried the lieutenant, when the evolution was completed. “If we fetch to windward off the northern point, we shall lay out into the offing, and in ten minutes we might laugh at Queen Anne's pocket-piece, which, you know, old boy, sent a ball from Dover to Calais.”
“Ay, sir, I've heard of the gun,” returned the grave seaman, “and a lively piece it must have been, if the straits were always of the same width they are now. But I see that, Captain Barnstable, which is more dangerous than a dozen of the heaviest cannon that were ever cast can be, at half a league's distance. The water is bubbling through our lee scuppers, already, sir.”
“And what of that? hav'n't I buried her guns often, and yet kept every spar in her without crack or splinter?”
“Ay, ay, sir, you have done it, and can do it again, where there is sea-room, which is all that a man wants for comfort in this life. But when we are out of these chops, we shall be embayed, with a heavy northeaster setting dead into the bight; it is that which I fear, Captain Barnstable, more than all the powder and ball in the whole island.”
“And yet, Tom, the balls are not to be despised, either; those fellows have found out their range, and send their iron within hail again: we walk pretty fast, Mr. Coffin; but a thirty-two can cut-travel us, with the best wind that ever blew.”
Tom threw a cursory glance towards the battery, which had renewed its fire with a spirit that denoted they saw their object, as he answered:
“It is never worth a man's while to strive to dodge a shot; for they are all commissioned to do their work, the same as a ship is commissioned to cruise in certain latitudes: but for the winds and the weather, they are given for a seafaring man to guard against, by making or shortening sail, as the case may be. Now, the headland to the southward stretches full three leagues to windward, and the shoals lie to the north; among which God keep us from ever running this craft again!”
“We will beat her out of the bight, old fellow,” cried the lieutenant; “we shall have a leg of three leagues in length to do it in.”
“I have known longer legs too short,” returned the cockswain, shaking his head; “a tumbling sea, with a lee-tide, on a lee-shore, makes a sad lee-way.”
The lieutenant was in the act of replying to this saying with a cheerful laugh, when the whistling of a passing shot was instantly succeeded by a crash of splintered wood; and at the next moment the head of the mainmast, after tottering for an instant in the gale, fell towards the deck, bringing with it the mainsail, and the long line of topmast, that had been bearing the emblems of America, as the cockswain had expressed it, among the stars of the heavens.
“That was a most unlucky hit!” Barnstable suffered to escape him in the concern of the moment; but, instantly resuming all his collectedness of manner and voice, he gave his orders to clear the wreck, and secure the fluttering canvas.
The mournful forebodings of Tom seemed to vanish with the appearance of a necessity for his exertions, and he was foremost among the crew in executing the orders of their commander. The loss of all the sail on the mainmast forced the Ariel so much from her course, as to render it difficult to weather the point, that jutted, under her lee, for some distance into the ocean. This desirable object was, however, effected by the skill of Barnstable, aided by the excellent properties of his vessel; and the schooner, borne down by the power of the gale, from whose fury she had now no protection, passed heavily along the land, heading as far as possible from the breakers, while the seamen were engaged in making their preparations to display as much of their mainsail as the stump of the mast would allow them to spread. The firing from the battery ceased, as the Ariel rounded the little promontory; but Barnstable, whose gaze was now bent intently on the ocean, soon perceived that, as his cockswain had predicted, he had a much more threatening danger to encounter, in the elements. When their damages were repaired, so far as circumstances would permit, the cockswain returned to his wonted station near the lieutenant; and after a momentary pause, during which his eyes roved over the rigging with a seaman's scrutiny, he resumed the discourse.
“It would have been better for us that the best man in the schooner should have been dubb'd of a limb, by that shot, than that the Ariel should have lost her best leg; a mainsail close-reefed may be prudent canvas as the wind blows, but it holds a poor luff to keep a craft to windward.”
“What would you have, Tom Coffin?” retorted his commander. “You see she draws ahead, and off-shore; do you expect a vessel to fly in the very teeth of the gale? or would you have me ware and beach her at once?”
“I would have nothing, nothing, Captain Barnstable,” returned the old seaman, sensibly touched at his commander's displeasure; “you are as able as any man that ever trod a plank to work her into an offing; but, sir, when that soldier-officer told me of the scheme to sink the Ariel at her anchor, there were such feelings come athwart my philosophy as never crossed it afore. I thought I saw her a wrack, as plainly, ay, as plainly as you may see the stump of that mast; and, I will own it, for it's as natural to love the craft you sail in as it is to love one's self, I will own that my manhood fetched a heavy lee-lurch at the sight.”
“Away with ye, ye old sea-croaker! forward with ye, and see that the head-sheets are trimmed flat. But hold! Come hither, Tom; if you have sights of wrecks, and sharks, and other beautiful objects, keep them stowed in your own silly brain; don't make a ghost-parlor of my forecastle. The lads begin to look to leeward, now, oftener than I would have them. Go, sirrah, go, and take example from Mr. Merry, who is seated on your namesake there, and is singing as if he were a chorister in his father's church.”
“Ah, Captain Barnstable, Mr. Merry is a boy, and knows nothing, so fears nothing. But I shall obey your orders, sir; and if the men fall astarn this gale, it sha'n't be for anything they'll hear from old Tom Coffin.”
The cockswain lingered a moment, notwithstanding his promised obedience, and then ventured to request that:
“Captain Barnstable would please call Mr. Merry from the gun; for I know, from having followed the seas my natural life, that singing in a gale is sure to bring the wind down upon a vessel the heavier; for He who rules the tempests is displeased that man's voice shall be heard when he chooses to send his own breath on the water.”
Barnstable was at a loss whether to laugh at his cockswain's infirmity, or to yield to the impression which his earnest and solemn manner had a powerful tendency to produce, amid such a scene. But making an effort to shake off the superstitious awe that he felt creeping around his own heart, the lieutenant relieved the mind of the worthy old seaman so far as to call the careless boy from his perch, to his own side; where respect for the sacred character of the quarter-deck instantly put an end to the lively air he had been humming. Tom walked slowly forward, apparently much relieved by the reflection that he had effected so important an object.
The Ariel continued to struggle against the winds and ocean for several hours longer, before the day broke on the tempestuous scene, and the anxious mariners were enabled to form a more accurate estimate of their real danger. As the violence of the gale increased, the canvas of the schooner had been gradually reduced, until she was unable to show more than was absolutely necessary to prevent her driving helplessly on the land. Barnstable watched the appearance of the weather, as the light slowly opened upon them, with an intense anxiety, which denoted that the presentiments of the cockswain were no longer deemed idle. On looking to windward, he beheld the green masses of water that were rolling in towards the land, with a violence that seemed irresistible, crowned with ridges of foam; and there were moments when the air appeared filled with sparkling gems, as the rays of the rising sun fell upon the spray that was swept from wave to wave. Towards the land the view was still more appalling. The cliffs, but a short half-league under the lee of the schooner, were, at all times, nearly hid from the eye by the pyramids of water, which the furious element, so suddenly restrained in its violence, cast high into the air, as if seeking to overleap the boundaries that nature had fixed to its dominion. The whole coast, from the distant headland at the south to the well-known shoals that stretched far beyond their course in the opposite direction, displayed a broad belt of foam, into which it would have been certain destruction for the proudest ship that ever swam to enter. Still the Ariel floated on the billows, lightly and in safety, though yielding to the impulses of the waters, and, at times, appearing to be engulfed in the yawning chasm which apparently opened beneath her to receive the little fabric. The low rumor of acknowledged danger had found its way through the schooner, and the seamen, after fastening their hopeless looks on the small spot of canvas that they were still able to show to the tempest, would turn to view the dreary line of coast, that seemed to offer so gloomy an alternative. Even Dillon, to whom the report of their danger had found its way, crept from his place of concealment in the cabin, and moved about the decks unheeded, devouring, with greedy ears, such opinions as fell from the lips of the sullen mariners.
At this moment of appalling apprehension, the cockswain exhibited the calmest resignation. He knew all had been done that lay in the power of man, to urge their little vessel from the land, and it was now too evident to his experienced eyes that it had been done in vain; but, considering himself as a sort of fixture in the schooner, he was quite prepared to abide her fate, be it for better or for worse. The settled look of gloom that gathered around the frank brow of Barnstable was in no degree connected with any considerations of himself; but proceeded from that sort of parental responsibility, from which the sea-commander is never exempt. The discipline of the crew, however, still continued perfect and unyielding. There had, it is true, been a slight movement made by one or two of the older seamen, which indicated an intention to drown the apprehensions of death in ebriety; but Barnstable had called for his pistols, in a tone that checked the procedure instantly, and, although the fatal weapons were, untouched by him, left to lie exposed on the capstan, where they had been placed by his servant, not another symptom of insubordination appeared among the devoted crew. There was even what to a landsman might seem an appalling affectation of attention to the most trifling duties of the vessel; and the men who, it should seem, ought to be devoting the brief moments of their existence to the mighty business of the hour, were constantly called to attend to the most trivial details of their profession. Ropes were coiled, and the slightest damages occasioned by the waves, which, at short intervals, swept across the low decks of the Ariel, were repaired, with the same precision and order as if she yet lay embayed in the haven from which she had just been driven. In this manner the arm of authority was kept extended over the silent crew, not with the vain desire to preserve a lingering though useless exercise of power, but with a view to maintain that unity of action that now could alone afford them even a ray of hope.
“She can make no head against this sea, under that rag of canvas,” said Barnstable, gloomily, addressing the cockswain, who, with folded arms and an air of cool resignation, was balancing his body on the verge of the quarter-deck, while the schooner was plunging madly into waves that nearly buried her in their bosom: “the poor little thing trembles like a frightened child, as she meets the water.”
Tom sighed heavily, and shook his head, before he answered:
“If we could have kept the head of the mainmast an hour longer, we might have got an offing, and fetched to windward of the shoals; but as it is, sir, mortal man can't drive a craft to windward—she sets bodily in to land, and will be in the breakers in less than an hour, unless God wills that the wind shall cease to blow.”
“We have no hope left us, but to anchor; our ground tackle may yet bring her up.”
Tom turned to his commander, and replied, solemnly, and with that assurance of manner that long experience only can give a man in moments of great danger:
“If our sheet-cable was bent to our heaviest anchor, this sea would bring it home, though nothing but her launch was riding by it. A northeaster in the German Ocean must and will blow itself out; nor shall we get the crown of the gale until the sun falls over the land. Then, indeed, it may lull; for the winds do often seem to reverence the glory of the heavens too much to blow their might in its very face!”
“We must do our duty to ourselves and the country,” returned Barnstable. “Go, get the two bowers spliced, and have a kedge bent to a hawser: we'll back our two anchors together, and veer to the better end of two hundred and forty fathoms; it may yet bring her up. See all clear there for anchoring and cutting away the mast! we'll leave the wind nothing but a naked hull to whistle over.”
“Ay, if there was nothing but the wind, we might yet live to see the sun sink behind them hills,” said the cockswain; “but what hemp can stand the strain of a craft that is buried, half the time, to her foremast in the water?”
The order was, however, executed by the crew, with a sort of desperate submission to the will of their commander; and when the preparations were completed, the anchors and kedge were dropped to the bottom, and the instant that the Ariel tended to the wind, the axe was applied to the little that was left of her long, raking masts. The crash of the falling spars, as they came, in succession, across the decks of the vessel, appeared to produce no sensation amid that scene of complicated danger; but the seamen proceeded in silence to their hopeless duty of clearing the wrecks. Every eye followed the floating timbers, as the waves swept them away from the vessel, with a sort of feverish curiosity, to witness the effect produced by their collision with those rocks that lay so fearfully near them; but long before the spars entered the wide border of foam, they were hid from view by the furious element in which they floated. It was now felt by the whole crew of the Ariel, that their last means of safety had been adopted; and, at each desperate and headlong plunge the vessel took into the bosom of the seas that rolled upon her forecastle, the anxious seamen thought that they could perceive the yielding of the iron that yet clung to the bottom, or could hear the violent surge of the parting strands of the cable, that still held them to their anchors. While the minds of the sailors were agitated with the faint hopes that had been excited by the movements of their schooner, Dillon had been permitted to wander about the deck unnoticed: his rolling eyes, hard breathing, and clenched hands excited no observation among the men, whose thoughts were yet dwelling on the means of safety. But now, when, with a sort of frenzied desperation, he would follow the retiring waters along the decks, and venture his person nigh the group that had collected around and on the gun of the cockswain, glances of fierce or of sullen vengeance were cast at him, that conveyed threats of a nature that he was too much agitated to understand.
“If ye are tired of this world, though your time, like my own, is probably but short in it,” said Tom to him, as he passed the cockswain in one of his turns, “you can go forward among the men; but if ye have need of the moments to foot up the reck'ning of your doings among men, afore ye're brought to face your Maker, and hear the log-book of Heaven, I would advise you to keep as nigh as possible to Captain Barnstable or myself.”
“Will you promise to save me if the vessel is wrecked?” exclaimed Dillon, catching at the first sounds of friendly interest that had reached his ears since he had been recaptured; “Oh! If you will, I can secure your future ease, yes, wealth, for the remainder of your days!”
“Your promises have been too ill kept afore this, for the peace of your soul,” returned the cockswain, without bitterness, though sternly; “but it is not in me to strike even a whale that is already spouting blood.”
The intercessions of Dillon were interrupted by a dreadful cry, that arose among the men forward, and which sounded with increased horror, amid the roarings of the tempest. The schooner rose on the breast of a wave at the same instant, and, falling off with her broadside to the sea, she drove in towards the cliffs, like a bubble on the rapids of a cataract.
“Our ground-tackle has parted,” said Tom, with his resigned patience of manner undisturbed; “she shall die as easy as man can make her!”—While he yet spoke, he seized the tiller, and gave to the vessel such a direction as would be most likely to cause her to strike the rocks with her bows foremost.
There was, for one moment, an expression of exquisite anguish betrayed in the dark countenance of Barnstable; but, at the next, it passed away, and he spoke cheerfully to his men:
“Be steady, my lads, be calm; there is yet a hope of life foryou—our light draught will let us run in close to the cliffs, and it is still falling water—see your boats clear, and be steady.”
The crew of the whale-boat, aroused by this speech from a sort of stupor, sprang into their light vessel, which was quickly lowered into the sea, and kept riding on the foam, free from the sides of the schooner, by the powerful exertions of the men. The cry for the cockswain was earnest and repeated, but Tom shook his head, without replying, still grasping the tiller, and keeping his eyes steadily bent on the chaos of waters into which they were driving. The launch, the largest boat of the two, was cut loose from the “gripes,” and the bustle and exertion of the moment rendered the crew insensible to the horror of the scene that surrounded them. But the loud hoarse call of the cockswain, to “look out—secure yourselves!” suspended even their efforts, and at that instant the Ariel settled on a wave that melted from under her, heavily on the rocks. The shock was so violent, as to throw all who disregarded the warning cry from their feet, and the universal quiver that pervaded the vessel was like the last shudder of animated nature. For a time long enough to breathe, the least experienced among the men supposed the danger to be past; but a wave of great height followed the one that had deserted them, and raising the vessel again, threw her roughly still farther on the bed of rocks, and at the same time its crest broke over her quarter, sweeping the length of her decks with a fury that was almost resistless. The shuddering seamen beheld their loosened boat driven from their grasp, and dashed against the base of the cliffs, where no fragment of her wreck could be traced, at the receding of the waters. But the passing billow had thrown the vessel into a position which, in some measure, protected her decks from the violence of those that succeeded it.
“Go, my boys, go,” said Barnstable, as the moment of dreadful uncertainty passed; “you have still the whale-boat, and she, at least, will take you nigh the shore. Go into her, my boys. God bless you, God bless you all! You have been faithful and honest fellows, and I believe he will not yet desert you; go, my friends, while there is a lull.”
The seamen threw themselves, in a mass, into the light vessel, which nearly sank under the unusual burden; but when they looked around them, Barnstable and Merry, Dillon and the cockswain, were yet to be seen on the decks of the Ariel. The former was pacing, in deep and perhaps bitter melancholy, the wet planks of the schooner, while the boy hung, unheeded, on his arm, uttering disregarded petitions to his commander to desert the wreck. Dillon approached the side where the boat lay, again and again, but the threatening countenances of the seamen as often drove him back in despair. Tom had seated himself on the heel of the bowsprit, where he continued, in an attitude of quiet resignation, returning no other answers to the loud and repeated calls of his shipmates, than by waving his hand towards the shore.
“Now hear me,” said the boy, urging his request, to tears; “if not for my sake, or for your own sake, Mr. Barnstable, or for the hope of God's mercy, go into the boat, for the love of my cousin Katherine.”
The young lieutenant paused in his troubled walk, and for a moment he cast a glance of hesitation at the cliffs; but, at the next instant, his eyes fell on the ruin of his vessel, and he answered:
“Never, boy, never; if my hour has come, I will not shrink from my fate.”
“Listen to the men, dear sir; the boat will be swamped, alongside the wreck, and their cry is, that without you they will not let her go.”
Barnstable motioned to the boat, to bid the boy enter it, and turned away in silence.
“Well,” said Merry, with firmness, “if it be right that a lieutenant shall stay by the wreck, it must also be right for a midshipman; shove off; neither Mr. Barnstable nor myself will quit the vessel.”
“Boy, your life has been entrusted to my keeping, and at my hands will it be required,” said his commander, lifting the struggling youth, and tossing him into the arms of the seamen. “Away with ye, and God be with you; there is more weight in you now than can go safe to land.”
Still the seamen hesitated, for they perceived the cockswain moving, with a steady tread, along the deck, and they hoped he had relented, and would yet persuade the lieutenant to join his crew. But Tom, imitating the example of his commander, seized the latter suddenly in his powerful grasp, and threw him over the bulwarks with an irresistible force. At the same moment he cast the fast of the boat from the pin that held it, and, lifting his broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in the tempest:
“God's will be done with me,” he cried. “I saw the first timber of the Ariel laid, and shall live just long enough to see it turn out of her bottom; after which I wish to live no longer.”
But his shipmates were swept far beyond the sounds of his voice, before half these words were uttered. All command of the boat was rendered impossible, by the numbers it contained, as well as the raging of the surf; and, as it rose on the white crest of a wave, Tom saw his beloved little craft for the last time. It fell into a trough of the sea, and in a few moments more its fragments were ground into splinters on the adjacent rocks. The cockswain still remained where he had cast off the rope, and beheld the numerous heads and arms that appeared rising, at short intervals, on the waves; some making powerful and well-directed efforts to gain the sands, that were becoming visible as the tide fell, and others wildly tossed in the frantic movements of helpless despair. The honest old seaman gave a cry of joy, as he saw Barnstable issue from the surf, bearing the form of Merry in safety to the sands, where, one by one, several seamen soon appeared also, dripping and exhausted. Many others of the crew were carried, in a similar manner, to places of safety; though, as Tom returned to his seat on the bowsprit, he could not conceal from his reluctant eyes the lifeless forms that were, in other spots, driven against the rocks with a fury that soon left them but few of the outward vestiges of humanity.
Dillon and the cockswain were now the sole occupants of their dreadful station. The former stood in a kind of stupid despair, a witness of the scene we have related; but as his curdled blood began again to flow more warmly through his heart, he crept close to the side of Tom, with that sort of selfish feeling that makes even hopeless misery more tolerable, when endured in participation with another.
“When the tide falls,” he said, in a voice that betrayed the agony of fear, though his words expressed the renewal of hope, “we shall be able to walk to land.”
“There was One and only One to whose feet the waters were the same as a dry dock,” returned the cockswain; “and none but such as have his power will ever be able to walk from these rocks to the sands.” The old seaman paused, and turning his eyes, which exhibited a mingled expression of disgust and compassion, on his companion, he added, with reverence: “Had you thought more of Him in fair weather, your case would be less to be pitied in this tempest.”
“Do you still think there is much danger?” asked Dillon.
“To them that have reason to fear death. Listen! do you hear that hollow noise beneath ye?”
“'Tis the wind driving by the vessel!”
“'Tis the poor thing herself,” said the affected cockswain, “giving her last groans. The water is breaking up her decks, and, in a few minutes more, the handsomest model that ever cut a wave will be like the chips that fell from her timbers in framing!”
“Why then did you remain here!” cried Dillon, wildly.
“To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God,” returned Tom. “These waves, to me, are what the land is to you; I was born on them, and I have always meant that they should be my grave.”
“But I—I,” shrieked Dillon, “I am not ready to die!—I cannot die!—I will not die!”
“Poor wretch!” muttered his companion; “you must go, like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster.”
“I can swim,” Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness to the side of the wreck. “Is there no billet of wood, no rope, that I can take with me?”
“None; everything has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. If ye are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God!”
“God!” echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy; “I know no God! there is no God that knows me!”
“Peace!” said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that seemed to speak in the elements; “blasphemer, peace!”
The heavy groaning, produced by the water in the timbers of the Ariel, at that moment added its impulse to the raging feelings of Dillon, and he cast himself headlong into the sea.
The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was necessarily returned to the ocean, in eddies, in different places favorable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one of these countercurrents, that was produced by the very rocks on which the schooner lay, and which the watermen call the “undertow,” Dillon had, unknowingly, thrown his person; and when the waves had driven him a short distance from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his most desperate efforts could not overcome. He was a light and powerful swimmer, and the struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before his eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, to continue his efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. The old seaman, who at first had watched his motions with careless indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a glance; and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice that was driven over the struggling victim to the ears of his shipmates on the sands:
“Sheer to port, and clear the undertow! Sheer to the southward!”
Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much obscured by terror to distinguish their object; he, however, blindly yielded to the call, and gradually changed his direction, until his face was once more turned towards the vessel. The current swept him diagonally by the rocks, and he was forced into an eddy, where he had nothing to contend against but the waves, whose violence was much broken by the wreck. In this state, he continued still to struggle, but with a force that was too much weakened to overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked around him for a rope, but all had gone over with the spars, or been swept away by the waves. At this moment of disappointment, his eyes met those of the desperate Dillon. Calm and inured to horrors as was the veteran seaman, he involuntarily passed his hand before his brow, to exclude the look of despair he encountered; and when, a moment afterwards, he removed the rigid member, he beheld the sinking form of the victim as it gradually settled in the ocean, still struggling, with regular but impotent strokes of the arms and feet, to gain the wreck, and to preserve an existence that had been so much abused in its hour of allotted probation.
“He will soon know his God, and learn that his God knows him!” murmured the cockswain to himself. As he yet spoke, the wreck of the Ariel yielded to an overwhelming sea, and, after an universal shudder, her timbers and planks gave way, and were swept towards the cliffs, bearing the body of the simple-hearted cockswain among the ruins.
“Let us think of them that sleepFull many a fathom deep,By the wild and stormy steep,Elsinore!”Campbell.
Long and dreary did the hours appear to Barnstable, before the falling tide had so far receded as to leave the sands entirely exposed to his search for the bodies of his lost shipmates. Several had been rescued from the wild fury of the waves themselves; and one by one, as the melancholy conviction that life had ceased was forced on the survivors, they had been decently interred in graves dug on the very margin of that element on which they had passed their lives. But still the form longest known and most beloved was missing, and the lieutenant paced the broad space that was now left between the foot of the cliffs and the raging ocean, with hurried strides and a feverish eye, watching and following those fragments of the wreck that the sea still continued to cast on the beach. Living and dead, he now found that of those who had lately been in the Ariel, only two were missing. Of the former he could muster but twelve, besides Merry and himself, and his men had already interred more than half that number of the latter, which, together, embraced all who had trusted their lives to the frail keeping of the whale-boat.
“Tell me not, boy, of the impossibility of his being safe,” said Barnstable, in deep agitation, which he in vain struggled to conceal from the anxious youth, who thought it unnecessary to follow the uneasy motions of his commander, as he strode along the sands. “How often have men been found floating on pieces of wreck, days after the loss of their vessel? and you can see, with your own eyes, that the falling water has swept the planks this distance; ay, a good half-league from where she struck. Does the lookout from the top of the cliffs make no signal of seeing him yet?”
“None, sir, none; we shall never see him again. The men say that he always thought it sinful to desert a wreck, and that he did not even strike out once for his life, though he has been known to swim an hour, when a whale has stove his boat. God knows, sir,” added the boy, hastily dashing a tear from his eye, by a stolen movement of his hand, “I loved Tom Coffin better than any foremast man in either vessel. You seldom came aboard the frigate but we had him in the steerage among us reefers, to hear his long yarns, and share our cheer. We all loved him, Mr. Barnstable; but love cannot bring the dead to life again.”
“I know it, I know it,” said Barnstable, with a huskiness in his voice that betrayed the depth of his emotion. “I am not so foolish as to believe in impossibilities; but while there is a hope of his living, I will never abandon poor Tom Coffin to such a dreadful fate. Think, boy, he may, at this moment, be looking at us, and praying to his Maker that he would turn our eyes upon him; ay, praying to his God, for Tom often prayed, though he did it in his watch, standing, and in silence.”
“If he had clung to life so strongly,” returned the midshipman, “he would have struggled harder to preserve it.”
Barnstable stopped short in his hurried walk, and fastened a look of opening conviction on his companion; but, as he was about to speak in reply, the shouts of the seamen reached his ears, and, turning, they saw the whole party running along the beach, and motioning, with violent gestures, to an intermediate point in the ocean. The lieutenant and Merry hurried back, and, as they approached the men, they distinctly observed a human figure, borne along by the waves, at moments seeming to rise above them, and already floating in the last of the breakers. They had hardly ascertained so much, when a heavy swell carried the inanimate body far upon the sands, where it was left by the retiring waters.
“'Tis my cockswain!” cried Barnstable, rushing to the spot. He stopped suddenly, however, as he came within view of the features, and it was some little time before he appeared to have collected his faculties sufficiently to add, in tones of deep horror: “What wretch is this, boy! His form is unmutilated, and yet observe the eyes! they seem as if the sockets would not contain them, and they gaze as wildly as if their owner yet had life—the hands are open and spread, as though they would still buffet the waves!”
“The Jonah! the Jonah!” shouted the seamen, with savage exultation, as they successively approached the corpse; “away with his carrion into the sea again! give him to the sharks! let him tell his lies in the claws of the lobsters!”
Barnstable had turned away from the revolting sight, in disgust; but when he discovered these indications of impotent revenge in the remnant of his crew, he said, in that voice which all respected and still obeyed:
“Stand back! back with ye, fellows! Would you disgrace your manhood and seamanship, by wreaking your vengeance on him whom God has already in judgment!” A silent, but significant, gesture towards the earth succeeded his words, and he walked slowly away.
“Bury him in the sands, boys,” said Merry, when his commander was at some little distance; “the next tide will unearth him.”
The seamen obeyed his orders, while the midshipman rejoined his commander, who continued to pace along the beach, occasionally halting to throw his uneasy glances over the water, and then hurrying onward, at a rate that caused his youthful companion to exert his greatest power to maintain the post he had taken at his side. Every effort to discover the lost cockswain was, however, after two hours' more search, abandoned as fruitless; and with reason, for the sea was never known to give up the body of the man who might be emphatically called its own dead.
“There goes the sun, already dropping behind the cliffs,” said the lieutenant, throwing himself on a rock; “and the hour will soon arrive to set the dog-watches; but we have nothing left to watch over, boy; the surf and rocks have not even left us a whole plank that we may lay our heads on for the night.”
“The men have gathered many articles on yon beach, sir,” returned the lad; “they have found arms to defend ourselves with, and food to give us strength to use them.”
“And who shall be our enemy?” asked Barnstable, bitterly; “shall we shoulder our dozen pikes, and carry England by boarding?”
“We may not lay the whole island under contribution,” continued the boy, anxiously, watching the expression of his commander's eye; “but we may still keep ourselves in work until the cutter returns from the frigate. I hope, sir, you do not think our case so desperate, as to intend yielding as prisoners.”
“Prisoners!” exclaimed the lieutenant; “no, no, lad, it has not got to that, yet! England has been able to wreck my craft, I must concede; but she has, as yet, obtained no other advantage over us. She was a precious model, Merry! the cleanest run, and the neatest entrance, that art ever united on the stem and stern of the same vessel! Do you remember the time, younker, when I gave the frigate my top-sails, in beating out of the Chesapeake? I could always do it, in smooth water, with a whole-sail breeze. But she was a frail thing! a frail thing, boy, and could bear but little.”
“A mortar-ketch would have thumped to pieces where she lay,” returned the midshipman.
“Ay, it was asking too much of her, to expect she could hold together on a bed of rocks. Merry, I loved her; dearly did I love her; she was my first command, and I knew and loved every timber and bolt in her beautiful frame!”
“I believe it is as natural, sir, for a seaman to love the wood and iron in which he has floated over the depths of the ocean for so many days and nights,” rejoined the boy, “as it is for a father to love the members of his own family.”
“Quite, quite, ay, more so,” said Barnstable, speaking as if he were choked by emotion. Merry felt the heavy grasp of the lieutenant on his slight arm, while his commander continued, in a voice that gradually increased in power, as his feelings predominated; “and yet, boy, a human being cannot love the creature of his own formation as he does the works of God. A man can never regard his ship as he does his shipmates. I sailed with him, boy, when everything seemed bright and happy, as at your age; when, as he often expressed it, I knew nothing and feared nothing. I was then a truant from an old father and a kind mother, and he did that for me which no parents could have done in my situation—he was my father and mother on the deep!—hours, days, even months, has he passed in teaching me the art of our profession; and now, in my manhood, he has followed me from ship to ship, from sea to sea, and has only quitted me to die, where I should have died—as if he felt the disgrace of abandoning the poor Ariel to her fate, by herself!”
“No—no—no—'twas his superstitious pride!” interrupted Merry, but perceiving that the head of Barnstable had sunk between his hands, as if he would conceal his emotion, the boy added no more; but he sat respectfully watching the display of feeling that his officer in vain endeavored to suppress. Merry felt his own form quiver with sympathy at the shuddering which passed through Barnstable's frame; and the relief experienced by the lieutenant himself was not greater than that which the midshipman felt, as the latter beheld large tears forcing their way through the other's fingers, and falling on the sands at his feet. They were followed by a violent burst of emotion, such as is seldom exhibited in the meridian of life; but which, when it conquers the nature of one who has buffeted the chances of the world with the loftiness of his sex and character, breaks down every barrier, and seems to sweep before it, like a rushing torrent, all the factitious defences which habit and education have created to protect the pride of manhood. Merry had often beheld the commanding severity of the lieutenant's manner in moments of danger, with deep respect; he had been drawn towards him by kindness and affection, in times of gayety and recklessness: but he now sat for many minutes profoundly silent, regarding his officer with sensations that were nearly allied to awe. The struggle with himself was long and severe in the bosom of Barnstable; but, at length, the calm of relieved passions succeeded to his emotion. When he arose from the rock, and removed his hands from his features, his eye was hard and proud, his brow lightly contracted, and he spoke in a voice so harsh, that it startled his companion:
“Come, sir; why are we here and idle? are not yon poor fellows looking up to us for advice and orders how to proceed in this exigency? Away, away, Mr. Merry; it is not a time to be drawing figures, in the sand with your dirk; the flood-tide will soon be in, and we may be glad to hide our heads in some cavern among these rocks. Let us be stirring, sir, while we have the sun, and muster enough food and arms to keep life in us, and our enemies off us, until we can once more get afloat.”
The wondering boy, whose experience had not yet taught him to appreciate the reaction of the passions, started at this unexpected summons to his duty, and followed Barnstable towards the group of distant seamen. The lieutenant, who was instantly conscious how far pride had rendered him unjust, soon moderated his long strides, and continued in milder tones, which were quickly converted into his usual frank communications, though they still remained tinged with a melancholy, that time only could entirely remove:
“We have been unlucky, Mr. Merry, but we need not despair—these lads have gotten together abundance of supplies, I see; and, with our arms, we can easily make ourselves masters of some of the enemy's smaller craft, and find our way back to the frigate, when this gale has blown itself out. We must keep ourselves close, though, or we shall have the redcoats coming down upon us, like so many sharks around a wreck. Ah! God bless her, Merry! There is not such a sight to be seen on the whole beach as two of her planks holding together.”
The midshipman, without adverting to this sudden allusion to their vessel, prudently pursued the train of ideas in which his commander had started.
“There is an opening into the country, but a short distance south of us, where a brook empties into the sea,” he said. “We might find a cover in it, or in the wood above, into which it leads, until we can have a survey of the coast, or can seize some vessel to carry us off.”
“There would be a satisfaction in waiting till the morning watch, and then carrying that accursed battery, which took off the better leg of the poor Ariel!” said the lieutenant—“the thing might be done, boy, and we could hold the work, too, until the Alacrity and the frigate draw in to land.”
“If you prefer storming works to boarding vessels, there is a fortress of stone, Mr. Barnstable, which lies directly on our beam. I could see it through the haze, when I was on the cliffs, stationing the lookout—and——
“And what, boy? speak without a fear; this is a time for free consultation.”
“Why, sir, the garrison might not all be hostile—we should liberate Mr. Griffith and the marines; besides——”
“Besides what, sir?”
“I should have an opportunity, perhaps, of seeing my cousin Cecilia and my cousin Katherine.”
The countenance of Barnstable grew animated as he listened, and he answered with something of his usual cheerful manner:
“Ay, that, indeed, would be a work worth carrying! And the rescuing of our shipmates, and the marines, would read like a thing of military discretion—ha! boy! all the rest would be incidental, younker; like the capture of the fleet, after you have whipped the convoy.”
“I do suppose, sir, that if the abbey be taken, Colonel Howard will own himself a prisoner of war.”
“And Colonel Howard's wards! now there is good sense in this scheme of thine, Master Merry, and I will give it proper reflection. But here are our poor fellows; speak cheeringly to them, sir, that we may hold them in temper for our enterprise.”
Barnstable and the midshipman joined their shipwrecked companions, with that air of authority which is seldom wanting between the superior and the inferior, in nautical intercourse, but at the same time with a kindness of speech and looks, that might have been a little increased by their critical situation. After partaking of the food which had been selected from among the fragments that still lay scattered, for more than a mile, along the beach, the lieutenant directed the seamen to arm themselves with such weapons as offered, and also to make sufficient provision, from the schooner's stores, to last them for four-and-twenty hours longer. These orders were soon executed; and the whole party, led by Barnstable and Merry, proceeded along the foot of the cliffs, in quest of the opening in the rocks, through which the little rivulet found a passage to the ocean. The weather contributed, as much as the seclusion of the spot to prevent any discovery of the small party, which pursued its object with a disregard of caution that might, under other circumstances, have proved fatal to its safety. Barnstable paused in his march when they had all entered the deep ravine, and ascended nearly to the brow of the precipice, that formed one of its sides, to take a last and more scrutinizing survey of the sea. His countenance exhibited the abandonment of all hope, as his eye moved slowly from the northern to the southern boundary of the horizon, and he prepared to pursue his march, by moving, reluctantly, up the stream, when the boy, who still clung to his side, exclaimed joyously:
“Sail ho!—It must be the frigate in the offing!”
“A sail!” repeated his commander; “where away do you see a sail in this tempest? Can there be another as hardy and unfortunate as ourselves!”
“Look to the starboard hand of the point of rock to windward!” cried the boy; “now you lose it—ah! now the sun falls upon it! 'tis a sail, sir, as sure as canvas can be spread in such a gale!”
“I see what you mean,” returned the other, “but it seems a gull, skimming the sea! nay, now it rises, indeed, and shows itself like a bellying topsail: pass up that glass, lads; here is a fellow in the offing who may prove a friend.”
Merry waited the result of the lieutenant's examination with youthful impatience, and did not fail to ask immediately:
“Can you make it out, sir? is it the ship or the cutter?”
“Come, there seemeth yet some hope left for us, boy,” returned Barnstable, closing the glass; “'tis a ship lying-to under her maintopsail. If one might but dare to show himself on these heights, he would raise her hull, and make sure of her character! But I think I know her spars, though even her topsail dips, at times, when there is nothing to be seen but her bare poles; and they shortened by her top-gallantmasts.”
“One would swear,” said Merry, laughing, as much through the excitement produced by this intelligence, as at his conceit, “that Captain Munson would never carry wood aloft, when he can't carry canvas. I remember, one night, Mr. Griffith was a little vexed, and said, around the capstan, he believed the next order would be to rig in the bowsprit, and house lowermasts!”
“Ay, ay, Griffith is a lazy dog, and sometimes gets lost in the fogs of his own thoughts,” said Barnstable; “and I suppose old Moderate was in a breeze. However, this looks as if he were in earnest; he must have kept the ship away, or she would never have been where she is; I do verily believe the old gentleman remembers that he has a few of his officers and men on this accursed island. This is well, Merry; for should we take the abbey, we have a place at hand in which to put our prisoners.”
“We must have patience till the morning,” added the boy, “for no boat would attempt to land in such a sea.”
“No boat could land! The best boat that ever floated, boy, has sunk in these breakers! But the wind lessens, and before morning the sea will fall. Let us on, and find a berth for our poor lads, where they can be made more comfortable.”
The two officers now descended from their elevation, and led the way still farther up the deep and narrow dell, until, as the ground rose gradually before them, they found themselves in a dense wood, on a level with the adjacent country.
“Here should be a ruin at hand, if I have a true reckoning, and know my courses and distances,” said Barnstable; “I have a chart about me that speaks of such a landmark.”
The lieutenant turned away from the laughing expression of the boy's eye, as the latter archly inquired:
“Was it made by one who knows the coast well, sir? Of was it done by some schoolboy, to learn his maps, as the girls work samplers?”
“Come, younker, no sampler of your impudence. But look ahead; can you see any habitation that has been deserted?”
“Ay, sir, here is a pile of stones before us, that looks as dirty and ragged as if it was a soldier's barrack; can this be what you seek?”
“Faith, this has been a whole town in its day! we should call it a city in America, and furnish it with a mayor, aldermen, and recorder—you might stow old Faneuil Hall in one of its lockers.”
With this sort of careless dialogue, which Barnstable engaged in, that his men might discover no alteration in his manner, they approached the mouldering walls that had proved so frail a protection to the party under Griffith.
A short time was passed in examining the premises, when the wearied seamen took possession of one of the dilapidated apartments, and disposed themselves to seek that rest of which they had been deprived by the momentous occurrences of the past night.
Barnstable waited until the loud breathing of the seamen assured him that they slept, when he aroused the drowsy boy, who was fast losing his senses in the same sort of oblivion, and motioned him to follow. Merry arose, and they stole together from the apartment, with guarded steps, and penetrated more deeply into the gloomy recesses of the place.