Part 34 (1/2)
”Coffin,” returned the c.o.c.kswain; ”I'm called Tom, when there is any hurry, such as letting go the haulyards, or a sheet; long Tom, when they want to get to windward of an old seaman, by fair weather; and long Tom Coffin, when they wish to hail me, so that none of my cousins of the same name, about the islands, shall answer; for I believe the best man among them can't measure much over a fathom, taking him from his headworks to his heel.”
”You are a most deserving fellow,” cried Borroughcliffe, ”and it is painful to think to what a fate the treachery of Mr. Dillon has consigned you.”
The suspicions of Tom, if he ever entertained any, were lulled to rest too effectually by the kindness he had received, to be awakened by this equivocal lament; he therefore, after renewing his intimacy with the rummer, contented himself by saying, with a satisfied simplicity:
”I am consigned to no one, carrying no cargo but this Mr. Dillon, who is to give me Mr. Griffith in exchange, or go back to the Ariel himself, as my prisoner.”
”Ah! my good friend, I fear you will find, when the time comes to make this exchange, that he will refuse to do either.”
”But, I'll be d----d if he don't do one of them! My orders are to see it done, and back he goes; or Mr. Griffith, who is as good a seaman, for his years, as ever trod a deck, slips his cable from this here anchorage.”
Borroughcliffe affected to eye his companion with great commiseration; an exhibition of compa.s.sion that was, however, completely lost on the c.o.c.kswain, whose nerves were strung to their happiest tension by his repeated libations, while his wit was, if anything, quickened by the same cause, though his own want of guile rendered him slow to comprehend its existence in others. Perceiving it necessary to speak plainly, the captain renewed the attack in a more direct manner:
”I am sorry to say that you will not be permitted to return to the Ariel; and that your commander, Mr. Barnstable, will be a prisoner within the hour; and, in fact, that your schooner will be taken before the morning breaks.”
”Who'll take her?” asked the c.o.c.kswain with a grim smile, on whose feelings, however, this combination of threatened calamities was beginning to make some impression.
”You must remember that she lies immediately under the heavy guns of a battery that can sink her in a few minutes; an express has already been sent to acquaint the commander of the work with the Ariel's true character; and as the wind has already begun to blow from the ocean, her escape is impossible.”
The truth, together with its portentous consequences, now began to glare across the faculties of the c.o.c.kswain. He remembered his own prognostics on the weather, and the helpless situation of the schooner, deprived of more than half her crew, and left to the keeping of a boy, while her commander himself was on the eve of captivity. The trencher fell from his lap to the floor, his head sunk on his knees, his face was concealed between his broad palms, and, in spite of every effort the old seaman could make to conceal his emotion, he fairly groaned aloud.
For a moment, the better feelings of Borroughcliffe prevailed, and he paused as he witnessed this exhibition of suffering in one whose head was already sprinkled with the marks of time; but his habits, and the impressions left by many years pa.s.sed in collecting victims for the wars, soon resumed their ascendency, and the recruiting officer diligently addressed himself to an improvement of his advantage.
”I pity from my heart the poor lads whom artifice or mistaken notions of duty may have led astray, and who will thus be taken in arms against their sovereign; but as they are found in the very island of Britain, they must be made examples to deter others. I fear that, unless they can make their peace with government, they will all be condemned to death.”
”Let them make their peace with G.o.d, then; your government can do but little to clear the log-account of a man whose watch is up for this world.”
”But, by making their peace with those who have the power, their lives may be spared,” said the captain, watching, with keen eyes, the effect his words produced on the c.o.c.kswain.
”It matters but little, when a man hears the messenger pipe his hammock down for the last time; he keeps his watch in another world, though he goes below in this. But to see wood and iron, that has been put together after such moulds as the Ariel's, go into strange hands, is a blow that a man may remember long after the purser's books have been squared against his name for ever! I would rather that twenty shot should strike my old carca.s.s, than one should hull the schooner that didn't pa.s.s out above her water-line.”
Borroughcliffe replied, somewhat carelessly, ”I may be mistaken, after all; and, instead of putting any of you to death, they may place you all on board the prison-s.h.i.+ps, where you may yet have a merry time of it these ten or fifteen years to come.”
”How's that, s.h.i.+pmate!” cried the c.o.c.kswain, with a start; ”a prison- s.h.i.+p, d'ye say? you may tell them they can save the expense of one man's rations by hanging him, if they please, and that is old Tom Coffin.”
”There is no answering for their caprice: to-day they may order a dozen of you to be shot for rebels; to-morrow they may choose to consider you as prisoners of war, and send you to the hulks for a dozen years.”
”Tell them, brother, that I'm a rebel, will ye? and ye'll tell 'em no lie--one that has fou't them since Manly's time, in Boston Bay, to this hour. I hope the boy will blow her up! it would be the death of poor Richard Barnstable to see her in the hands of the Englis.h.!.+”
”I know of one way,” said Borroughcliffe, affecting to muse, ”and but one, that will certainly avert the prison-s.h.i.+p; for, on second thoughts, they will hardly put you to death.”
”Name it, friend,” cried the c.o.c.kswain, rising from his seat in evident perturbation, ”and if it lies in the power of man, it shall be done.”
”Nay,” said the captain, dropping his hand familiarly on the shoulder of the other, who listened with the most eager attention, ”'tis easily done, and no dreadful thing in itself; you are used to gunpowder, and know its smell from otto of roses!”
”Ay, ay,” cried the impatient old seaman; ”I have had it flas.h.i.+ng under my nose by the hour; what then?”
”Why, then, what I have to propose will be nothing to a man like you-- you found the beef wholesome, and the grog mellow!”
”Ay, ay, all well enough; but what is that to an old sailor?” asked the c.o.c.kswain, unconsciously grasping the collar of Borroughcliffe's coat, in his agitation; ”what then?”