Part 8 (1/2)
”She seems to be moving through the water very fast, light as is the wind,” remarked the first lieutenant. ”Ten minutes ago she was broad on our weather-bow, while now she is almost abeam. I expect we shall find that she is quite as fast as ourselves.”
CHAPTER NINE.
THE PIRATE BRIGANTINE.
We watched the stranger as she was revealed at uncertain but decreasing intervals by the silent sheet-lightning, which was now flickering up all round the horizon, affording us momentary glimpses of the great lowering cloud-ma.s.ses that overhung our mastheads as though ready to fall and crush us, the s.h.i.+ning undulations of the swell, with the small overrunning ripples caused by the faint breathing of the breeze, the distant land, and the brigantine sliding furtively along within its shadow. When at length she had drawn to a bearing two points abaft our beam, the Captain gave the word to tack; and when, three minutes later, we were fairly round, the yards braced up, sheets hauled aft, and the frigate gathering way on the starboard tack, the stranger lay straight ahead of us.
Of course, we had taken the precaution to wait until immediately after a lightning flash before putting our helm down, and, as it happened, the next gleam did not occur until several minutes after we had tacked; the probability, therefore, was that the stranger would know nothing about our manoeuvre until the scene was again illuminated. The question that now interested us was--how would her people act when they made the discovery that we had s.h.i.+fted our helm and were standing in their direction? There were three alternatives open to them. First, they might follow our example--tack, and endeavour to escape to windward if they believed their vessel speedy enough to succeed. Secondly, they might haul their wind and enter the Gulf of Venezuela, along the sh.o.r.es of which there are two or three shallow inlets, in one or the other of which they might take refuge and anchor, in the hope of being able to defend their s.h.i.+p successfully against a boat attack. And, thirdly, if they were perfectly honest--of which we had our doubts--they might proceed steadily on their way, taking no notice of us and our movements.
When we next got a sight of them the third alternative seemed to be their intention, for, so far as we could discover, they had started neither tack nor sheet; we therefore proceeded to edge down very cautiously and very gradually toward her, keeping her about a point on our lee-bow.
Now we discovered that our task was not going to be nearly so easy as we had at first thought, for in the very light breath of wind that was then blowing--and which was wholly insufficient to keep our lower canvas ”asleep”--the stranger undoubtedly had the heels of us, slipping along so fast, indeed, that within a quarter of an hour of tacking we were running off with the wind abeam and our weather braces checked, instead of being upon a taut bowline, as we had been at the beginning of the chase.
Meanwhile the expected storm, though it had been brewing long, showed unmistakable signs that it was not going to keep us waiting very much longer, for the sheet--lightning was flickering almost incessantly, while a low, deep muttering of distant thunder occasionally made itself heard. The storm seemed to be working up astern of us, for presently a dazzlingly vivid flash of chain-lightning rent the darkness over our weather quarter, quickly followed by a deep, hollow, reverberating peal of thunder that rumbled like the echo of a seventy-four's broadside.
Another and another quickly followed, each nearer than that which had preceded it; and presently, far away astern of us, we saw advancing toward us a sort of wall of vapour, the lower edge of which gleamed white and phosph.o.r.escent as the wind in it lashed the surface of the water into foam.
”Hands, shorten sail!” was now the word. The watch sprang to their stations, coils of rope were lifted off their pins and flung to the deck; then in rapid succession followed the orders:--”Royal and topgallant halliards and sheets let go; clew up and furl! Hands by the weather braces; square the yards! Raise main tack and sheet; man the main clew-garnets, buntlines, and leech-lines; clew up cheerily, lads!
Up helm, quartermaster, and let her go off. So; steady as you go.
Hands by the topsail halliards! Brail in the mizen! Haul down the flying-jib! Here it comes!”
The squall swooped down upon us with a weird, shrieking howl, and a dash of wet that was half rain and half spray; and the next moment, with a tremendous creaking and groaning of timbers and gear, with all three topsail-yards on the caps, and with the chain bobstay half-buried in the foam that heaped itself up about our bows, away went the frigate, like a startled sea-bird, speeding down-wind upon the wings of the squall, enveloped in a sheet of rain that was more than half salt water, with the lightning flickering and darting all round her, and the thunder cras.h.i.+ng overhead in a continuous booming roar.
The squall lasted very nearly three-quarters of an hour; but long before that time had elapsed the weather ahead had cleared sufficiently to enable us again to catch sight of the brigantine, now about two points on our starboard-bow, running dead before it, like ourselves, under nothing but a close-reefed topsail and reefed foresail. She was still maintaining her distance from us in the most wonderful manner; but was now--possibly in consequence of having been compelled by the squall to bear up--steering as though to enter the Gulf of Venezuela. We contrived to gain a little upon her by carefully watching our opportunities and making sail by degrees as the squall blew itself out; but in that respect her people were fully as wide awake as we were, and made sail with a boldness and rapidity which most conclusively proved that she was very strongly manned, and, therefore, not in the least likely to be the harmless, innocent trader that they would doubtless have liked to persuade us she was. She was hugging the land so closely that some of us were of opinion that her skipper intended to run her ash.o.r.e and take to his boats if it should prove impossible to avoid capture in any other way; but the Captain did not believe this, and the master also seemed to be of his opinion.
”His object,” said Trimble, ”is undoubtedly to get round Point Espada and fairly into the Gulf. If he can succeed in that, there are plenty of little coves, especially along the western sh.o.r.e, in which he might anchor and, sheltered from our guns, bid defiance to a boat attack.”
”Ah!” observed the skipper, with much meaning. ”Well, we shall see. It is perfectly evident that he is anxious to keep out of our clutches, which desire argues a guilty conscience on his part, and only makes me the more determined to overhaul him. Confound it, here comes the rain again! Mr Gascoigne, have the goodness to slip into my cabin and desire my steward to bring my oilskins on deck. Or, stay, the fellow will have turned-in by this time; I will get them myself.”
The rain came swooping down upon us with the tail-end of the squall, and for a quarter of an hour it was so thick that we could see nothing a couple of s.h.i.+ps'-lengths outside the bulwarks. Then it cleared away, the clouds dispersed, the stars came out, the wind dropped to a moderate breeze, and presently the moon, with nearly half her disc in shadow, crept up above the horizon, flooding the heaving waters with ruddy gold that quickly changed to silver as the satellite climbed high enough to clear herself of the vapours that distorted her shape and imparted to her the colour of burnished copper.
But where was the brigantine? Ahead, abeam, on our quarter we looked, but nowhere could we discern the faintest trace of her. We had lost sight of her a bare quarter of an hour, and in that brief s.p.a.ce of time she had contrived to vanish as completely as though she had gone to the bottom in deep-water, leaving not so much as a fragment of floating wreckage to furnish a clue to her fate.
The skipper was as much puzzled as he was annoyed, and in his perplexity he turned to the master.
”What do you think has become of her, Mr Trimble?” he demanded. ”She cannot have gone ash.o.r.e and broken up so completely in a quarter of an hour that no sign of her would remain. We should see something at least in the nature of wreckage to give us a hint of what had happened. Yet I see nothing; although if she had been stranded, either purposely or by accident, her wreck ought to be away in there somewhere about abreast of us. And there are no off-sh.o.r.e dangers, are there?”
”The nearest that I know of are The Monks, away out here, some twenty-five miles to the nor'ard and east'ard of us,” answered the master. ”The coast insh.o.r.e of us is, of course, a bit rocky, but there is nothing, so far as I know, in the nature of hidden dangers to cause the wreck of the brigantine. No, sir, it is my belief that there is some snug little secret cove, known to the skipper of that brigantine, and that he took advantage of the rain squall to slip into it, in the hope of dodging us.”
”Ah!” said the skipper, ”yes; that is, after all, the only feasible explanation of his disappearance. He is neither ahead nor astern nor to seaward of us; therefore he must be hidden somewhere insh.o.r.e. Mr Galway,”--to the first lieutenant--”we will shorten sail, if you please, with the s.h.i.+p's head off the land, remaining in sight of the coast until daylight, when we shall perhaps be able to discover the hiding-place of that brigantine.”
This was done, and during the remainder of the night the _Europa_, under her three topsails, jib and spanker, stood off and on, never going farther from the sh.o.r.e than a distance of six miles, and very gradually working her way back to--as nearly as we could guess it--the spot where we had lost sight of the brigantine. As the night wore on all traces of the recent storm pa.s.sed away; the sky cleared, the moon and stars beamed down upon us in tropical splendour, affording us an ample sufficiency of light to enable us to maintain an effective watch upon the coast, and ensure that the stranger did not creep out from her place of concealment and give us the slip. The _terral_, or land wind, overpowered by the recent squall, once more resumed its sway and piped up strongly, bringing off to us the warm, fragrant odour of land and vegetation.
At length the day dawned, the sun soared into view above the eastern horizon, and with the coming of the light some half-dozen of the best telescopes in the s.h.i.+p were brought to bear upon the line of coast that lay about five miles distant on our port beam. I happened to be the lucky possessor of an exceptionally good instrument--a present from my father--and I had not been long at work with it when I discovered what was unmistakably a small indentation in the coast-line, sheltered and all but concealed by two headlands which approached each other so closely that, viewed from a distance, they appeared almost to overlap.
I immediately directed the first lieutenant's attention to the spot, at the same time handing him my gla.s.s, and he presently picked it up. He agreed with me that it was undoubtedly a cove, or tiny bay of some sort, but was rather of the opinion that it was too small to afford shelter to a vessel of the dimensions of the missing brigantine. Nevertheless, since it was the only opening that we could discover, and was, moreover, about the spot where the stranger had disappeared, it was determined to give the place an overhaul, and the helm was accordingly eased down, the yards braced in, and we began to work in toward it. Then the fighting boats' crews were told off to overhaul the boats and prepare them for service, yard and stay tackles were got aloft for the purpose of hoisting out the launch, the boat-guns were slung all ready for lowering over the side as soon as the boats should be brought alongside, ammunition boxes were brought on deck, and, in short, every preparation was made for a boat expedition; after which all hands were piped to breakfast.
By the time that this meal was finished the frigate had worked in to within about a mile from the sh.o.r.e, at which point she ran into a calm, the land-breeze having died away. The boats were then got into the water and brought to the gangway, the guns were lowered down and secured to platforms in the bows of the launch and the two cutters, shot was pa.s.sed down and stowed on the bottom-boards on either side of the keel, the ammunition boxes were stowed in the stern-sheets, and then, all else being ready, those who were to take part in the expedition were mustered for inspection prior to being dispatched on what was likely enough to prove a dangerous errand. But little recked any of us of possible danger; on the contrary, if an onlooker had judged only by the satisfied smirk which our countenances wore, it might have been supposed that we were all bound ash.o.r.e for a day's holiday in the woods.
The expedition was to be under the command of Mr Gadsby, the second lieutenant, who would go in the launch; the first cutter was to be commanded by Mr O'Donnel, the boatswain, and the command of the second cutter was entrusted to me. We mustered fifty altogether, including marines; and when at length, after having been carefully inspected by the first lieutenant, we were given the word to shove off, the men who were left behind sprang into the rigging and sped us on our way with a hearty cheer.