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CHAPTER XIII
THE BERMUDA TRADER

There is a great deal of the humdrum and monotonous in the day after day life and work upon a ship at sea. Even if the ship is a cruiser and if there is a continuous watching for and study of all the other sails that appear, that too may grow dull and tiresome.

There were many days of such unprofitable watching from the outlooks of the Noank, after her first unexpected good fortune. She had somehow failed to overtake that sought-for Porto Rico merchantman. The gale had favored an escape, and so had the delay occasioned by the pursuit and capture of the Spencer. Since then, carrying all the sail the varying winds would let him, Captain Avery had sailed persistently on, hoping for that prize or for another as good. There had been topsails reported, from time to time, between him and the horizon, and from two, at least, of those, he had cautiously sheered away, not liking their very excellent "cut." There might be tiers of dangerous guns away down below them and he did not want any more guns, – heavy ones.

"I said," he remarked, a little dolefully, "that I'd foller that sugar-boat all the way to Liverpool, and I've only 'bout half done it. I'm goin' ahead. There's no use in tryin' back toward Cuba, now. We'll take a look at the British coast, pretty soon; France, too, and Ireland, maybe Holland. We'll see what's to be had in the channels."

Everybody on board was likely to be satisfied with that decision, especially the British prisoners from the Spencer. As for these, the sailor part of them were already on very good terms with their captors, not caring very much how or in what kind of craft they were to find their way back to England. They were a happy-go-lucky lot of foremastmen with strong prejudices, of course, against all Yankee rebels, but with thoroughly seamanlike ideas that they had no right to be sulky over the ordinary chances of war. They had not really lost much, and their main cause of complaint was their very narrow quarters on board the Noank. They had not the least idea that a change in this respect was only a little ahead of them, but a great improvement was coming.

Day had followed day, and the ocean seemed to be in a manner deserted. A feeling of disappointment seemed to be growing in the mind of Captain Avery, and he had half forgotten how very good a prize the Spencer had been.

"This 'ere is dreadful!" he declared. "I'm afraid we're not goin' to make a dollar. What few sails we've sighted have all been Dutch or French. I want a look at the red-cross flag again."

"Well, yes," thought Guert, "but I guess he doesn't want to see it on a man-o'-war. I feel a good deal as he does, though. I'll get Vine to lend me a glass. I've hardly had a chance to play lookout."

Vine let him have the telescope, of course, but Up-na-tan and Coco came at once to see what he would do with it. He pulled it out to its length and began to peer across the surrounding ocean.

"Ugh!" said Up-na-tan. "Boy fool! No stay on deck. Go up mast. Maintop. Then mebbe see something. No good eye!"

"Git up aloft, Guert!" added Coco. "Never mine ole redskin. Think he go bline, pretty soon. Can't see lobster ship."

That may have referred to the fact that they had served as lookouts, that morning, until they were weary of it, and Up-na-tan had lost his temper. They grinned discontentedly as they saw their young friend go aloft. He had now become well accustomed to high perches, and was beginning to regard himself as an experienced sailor for that kind of small cruiser. He felt very much at home in the maintop, and even Captain Avery glanced up at him approvingly.

"He must learn how," he remarked, as he saw Guert square himself in his narrow coop and adjust the telescope.

"Ugh!" suddenly exclaimed the Indian. "Boy see! Wish ole chief up there heself."

The others had not noticed so closely, and Guert was not apparently excited. He was gazing steadily in one direction, however, instead of hunting here and there, as he had done at first.

"Isn't a telescope wonderful?" he was thinking. "It brings that flag close up. I can see that her foremast is gone. That looks like another sail, away off beyond her. More than one of 'em. Maybe it's a fleet."

A lurch of the Noank compelled him to lower his glass and grasp a rope, while he leaned over to shout down his wonderful discoveries.

"Hurrah!" yelled Vine. "Good for Guert!"

"Hard a-lee, then!" roared Captain Avery to the man at the helm. "Ready about! Strange sail to looard! Up-na-tan, that long gun! Clear for action!"

It was all very well for him to shout rapid orders and for the crew to bring up powder and shot so eagerly, and get the schooner ready for a fight. It was also well for the captain to go aloft and take the glass himself. He could see more than Guert could. But what was the good of it all when the wind was dying?

There was hardly air enough to keep the sails from flapping. A schooner could do better than a square-rigged vessel under such circumstances, but that wind was an aggravating trial to a ship-load of excited privateersmen.

Captain McGrew had been permitted to come on deck, and Guert, as he reached the deck from aloft, was half sure that he had heard the Englishman chuckling maliciously, then heard him mutter: —

"The Bermuda ships never sail home without a strong convoy. These chaps'll catch it."

When Captain Avery himself came down and the opinion of the Spencer's captain was reported to him, he said: —

"From Bermuda, eh? That's likely. We're not far out o' their course, I'd say. Who cares for convoy? I don't. This feller nighest us is crippled and left behind. If it wasn't for this calm, my boy – "

There he became silent and stood still, staring hungrily to leeward.

Perhaps his manifest vexation was enjoyed by his English prisoner, but Captain McGrew very soon put on a graver face, for the sharp-nosed Noank was all the while slipping along, and the ship she was steering toward was almost as good as standing still. So must have been any heavier craft, warlike or otherwise.

An hour went by, another, and the deceptive British merchant flag still fluttered from the rigging of the Noank. The strange sail had made no attempt to signal her and there had been a reason for it. She had her own sharp-eyed lookouts, and these and her officers had been studying this schooner to windward of them.

"She's American built," they had said of her. "Most likely she's one of the Solway's prizes. The old seventy-four has picked up a dozen of them. She ought not to be coming this way though. She's running out of her course."

There was something almost suspicious about it, they thought. It might be all right, but they were at sea in war time, and there was no telling what might happen.

"She'll be within hail inside of five minutes," they said at last. "We've signalled her now, and she doesn't pay us any attention. It looks bad. Her lookouts haven't gone blind."

Not at all. Captain Avery was anything but shortsighted. His glass had recently informed him that a huge hulk of some sort, only the topsails of which had been seen at first, was steadily drifting nearer.

"Answer no hail!" he had ordered. "We must board her without firing a gun."

Not for firing, therefore, but for show only, the pivot-gun threw off its tarpaulin disguise, and the broadside sixes ran their threatening brass noses out at the port-holes, while the British flag came down and the stars and stripes went up.

"Heave to, or I'll sink you!" was the first hail of Captain Avery. "What ship's that?"

"Sinclair, Bermuda, Captain Keller. Cargo and passengers. We surrender!" came quickly back. "We are half disabled now. Short-handed."

"All right," said the captain. "We won't hurt you. We'll grapple and board."

The Sinclair was more than twice the size of the Noank. She carried a few good-looking guns, too. The grappling irons were thrown; the two hulls came together; the American boarders poured over her bulwarks, pike and cutlass in hand, ready for a fight. All they saw there to meet them, however, was not more than a score of sailors, of all sorts, and a mob of passengers, aft. Some of these were weeping and clinging to each other as if they had seen a pack of wolves coming.

"I'm Captain Keller," said the nearest of the Englishmen. "You're too many for us. We couldn't even man the guns. Five men on the sick list."

He seemed intensely mortified at his inability to show fight, and he instantly added: —

"Besides, man alive! six Bermuda planters and their families! They all expect that you're going to make 'em walk the plank."

"That's jest what we'll do!" replied Captain Avery. "We'll cut their throats first, to make 'em stop their music. I'll tell you what, though. I've a lot of English fellers that I want to get rid of. No use to me. You can have 'em, if you'll be good. Captain McGrew, fetch your men over into this 'ere 'Mudian! I don't want her."

"All right! We're coming!" called back the suddenly delighted ex-skipper of the Spencer. "What luck this is!"

"Now, Captain Keller," said Avery, "we'll search for cash and anything else we want. Are you leakin'?"

"No," said the Englishman, "we're tight enough. We were damaged in a gale, that's all. There's one of our convoy, off to looard, – the old Solway. She lost a stick, too."

"We won't hurt her," said Avery. "What did that old woman yell for?"

"Why," said Keller, "one o' those younkers told her you meant to burn the ship and sell her to the Turks. But the best part of our cargo, for your taking, is coming up from the hold."

The two grim old salts perfectly understood each other's dry humor, and Keller's orders had been given without waiting for explanations.

"Hullo!" said Avery. "Well, yes, I'd say so! There they come! How many of 'em?"

"Forty-seven miserable Yankees," said Keller. "The Solway took 'em out of a Baltimore clipper and another rebel boat. She stuck 'em in on us to relieve her own hold. They were to be distributed 'mong the Channel fleet, maybe. You may have 'em all. It's a kind of fair trade, I'd say."

At that moment the two ships were ringing with cheers. The Spencer Englishmen, the short-handed crew of the Sinclair, and, most uproariously of all, the liberated American sailors, who were pouring up from the hold, let out all the voices they had. It was an extraordinary scene to take place on the deck of a vessel just captured by bloodthirsty privateers. The women and children ceased their crying, and then the men passengers came forward to find out what was the matter. Ten words of explanation were given, and then even they were laughing merrily. The dreaded pirate schooner had only brought the much needed supply of sailors, and there was no real harm in her.

A search below for cash and other valuables of a quickly movable character was going forward with all haste, nevertheless, while the liberated tars of both nations transferred themselves and their effects to either vessel.

"Not much cash," said Captain Avery, "but I've found a couple of extra compasses and a prime chronometer that I wanted. The prisoners are the best o' this prize, and how I'm to stow 'em and quarter 'em, I don't exactly know. We must steer straight for Brest, I think."

"Captain," said Guert, coming to him a little anxiously, "off to looard! Boats!"

The captain was startled.

"Boats? From the seventy-four?" he exclaimed. "That means mischief! All hands on board the Noank! Call 'em up from below! Tally! Don't miss a man! Drop all you can't carry!"

The skipper of the Sinclair was looking contemptuously at his bewildered passengers.

"The whimperingest lot I ever sailed with," he remarked of them; and then he sang out, to be heard by all: "Captain Avery! Did you say you were going to scuttle my ship, or set her afire?"

"Both!" responded the captain. "Jest as soon's I get good and ready. I'll show ye!"

"You bloodthirsty monster!" burst from one of the older ladies. "All of you Americans are pirates! Worse than pirates!"

"Fact, madam!" said he; "but then you don't know how good we are, too. I'm a kind of angel, myself. Look out yonder, though! See that lot o' pirate boats from the Solway? The captain o' that tub is a bloodthirsty monster! He eats children, ye know. He's a reg'lar Englishman!"

"You brute!" she said; and then, as the commander of the Noank was going over the rail, she added, more calmly; "Why! what an old fool I am! The Americans are only in a hurry to get away. Our boats are coming after 'em, and then they'll all be hung."

"That's it, madam," said Captain Keller. "They're going to get 'em, too. What I care for most is that we've hands enough now to repair damages, so we can get you all to Liverpool."

Off swung the terrible privateer, her much increased ship's company sending back a round of cheers as she did so. A light puff of air began to fill the limp sails of the Sinclair, and she, too, gathered headway.

"Wind come a little more," said Up-na-tan, thoughtfully. "No fight boat. No hurt 'Muda ship. No sink her."

The captain overheard him, and he broke out into a hearty laugh.

"No, you old scalper," he said. "I'm a Connecticut man, I am. I can't bear to see anything like wastage. What's the use o' burnin' a ship you can't keep? It's a thing I couldn't do."

"No take her, anyhow," said the Indian. "Ole tub too slow. Lobster ship take her back right away. Ugh! Bad wind!"

Very bad indeed was that light breeze, and away yonder were the boats of the Solway coming steadily along in a well-handled line.

"They're dangerous looking, sir," said Groot, the Dutch ex-pirate, after a study of them through a glass. "Two of them carry boat guns. Strong crews. I'd not like to be boarded by them."

"We won't let 'em board," said the captain. "Thank God, we've a good deal more'n a hundred men now. I guess Keller'll warn 'em how strong we are. That may hold 'em back."

It was a schooner wind, and the Noank was going along, but she was not travelling so fast as were the vigorously pulled boats. It was a lesson in sea warfare to watch them and see how perfect was their discipline and the oar-training of their crews.

"That's the reason," remarked Captain Avery, "why England rules the sea. We'll have a navy, some day, and we'll beat 'em at their own teachin's."

The rescued prisoners had been having a hard time of it in the hold of the Bermuda trader, and they were beginning to feel desperate now at what seemed a prospect of being once more captured by the enemy. They went to the guns, and they armed themselves like men who were about to fight for their very lives. There was one piece that they were not allowed to touch, however, for Up-na-tan himself was behind the pivot-gun. He and Groot, in consultation, seemed to be carefully calculating the now rapidly diminishing distance between the schooner and the British boat-line.

This reached the Sinclair speedily, and its delay there was only long enough for reports and explanations.

"That's her armament, is it?" the lieutenant in command had said to Keller. "Stronger than I expected, but we can take her. Forward, all! She won't think of resisting us. Give her a gun to heave to!"

The longboat in which he stood carried a snub-nosed six-pounder, and its gunners at once blazed away. They had the range well, and their shot went skipping along only a few fathoms aft of the Noank's stern.

"Father," exclaimed Vine, "it won't do to let that work go on. We might be crippled."

"Give it to 'em, Up-na-tan!" shouted the captain. "Men! We won't be taken! We'll fight this fight out!"'

Loud cheers answered him, but it was Groot, the pirate, who was now sighting the long eighteen, and he proved to be a capital marksman.

"Ugh! Longboat!" said Up-na-tan. "Now!"

Away sped the iron messenger, so carefully directed, but not one British sailor was hurt by it. It did but rudely graze the larboard stern timber of the Solway's longboat at the water line.

"Thunder!" roared the astonished lieutenant. "A hole as big as a barrel! If they haven't sunk us!"

The nearest boats on either hand pulled swiftly to the rescue, but that boat-gun would never again be fired. The other gun, in the Solway's pinnace, spoke out angrily, and, curiously enough, it had been charged with nothing but grape-shot. All of this was what Captain Avery might have described as wastage, for it was uselessly scattered over the sea.

Loud were the yells and cheers on board the Noank as her crew saw their most dangerous antagonist go under water, sinking all the faster because of the heavy cannon. Of course, the sailors whose boat had so unexpectedly gone out from under them were all picked up, but not one of them had saved pike or musket. The attacking force had therefore been diminished seriously, and there had also been many minutes of delay.

"Captain," said Groot, "I'll send another pill among them, whiles they're clustered so close together."

"Not a shot!" sharply commanded Captain Avery. "I'm thinkin'! Men! It's more'n likely there are 'pressed Americans on those boats. I won't risk it. We must get away."

"Ay, ay, sir," came heartily back from many voices. "Let 'em go."

That was what saved the really beaten British tars from any more heavy shot, and the Noank was all the while increasing her distance. The only remaining danger to her now was the mighty Solway, and her sails, full set, could be seen and studied by the glasses on the schooner.

"She's the first big ship I ever saw under full sail," said Guert to Groot. "I've only seen 'em in port."

"You'd be of little good on her till after you'd served awhile," said the Dutchman, in his own tongue. "It isn't even every British captain that can handle a seventy-four as she ought to be handled."

Whoever was in charge of the Solway now, she was sailing faster than the Noank, and things were looking badly. So said one of his old neighbors to Captain Lyme Avery, only to be answered by a chuckle.

"Jest calc'late," he added, quite cheerfully. "A starn chase is always a long chase. They won't be gettin' into range for their best guns till about dark. Then I'll show ye. Vine, make a barrel raft! Sharp!"

Up from the hold came quickly a dozen or so of empty barrels, and these were carpentered together with planks so as to make a skeleton deck. In the middle of this was rigged a spar like a mast, and the raft was ready.

All the sailors believed they knew what was coming. It was an old, old, trick, as old as the hills, but it might be the thing to try in this case.

On came the stately line-of-battle ship, as the shadows deepened. She was slowly gaining in spite of the Noank having every inch of her canvas spread. She would soon be near enough to fly her bow chasers. If these were heavy enough, there would then be nothing left the American privateer but prompt surrender. The next half-hour was, therefore, a time of breathless anxiety.

"It's almost dark enough, now," said Captain Avery, at last, with a cloudy face. "Over with the raft, Vine; I'm goin' to try somethin' new."

Over the side it went and it floated buoyantly, with a large, lighted lantern swinging at the tip of its pretty tall mast. At the foot of that spar, however, had been securely fastened a barrel of powder, with a long line-fuse carried from it up several feet along the upright stick.

"If that light fools him at all," said the captain, "it'll gain us half an hour and five miles. If it doesn't, why, then we're gone, that's all. Now, Coco, due nor'west! Keep her head well to the wind. We shall pass that seventy-four within two miles."

It was a daring game to play, taking into account British night-glasses and heavy guns, to tack toward a line-of-battle ship in that manner.

On the Solway, however, there had been a feeling of absolute certainty as to overtaking the schooner. She had been in plain view, they said, up to the moment when her crew so foolishly swung out a lantern. It was a mere glimmer, truly, but it would do to steer by. It was many minutes afterward that an idea suddenly flashed into the experienced mind of the British commander.

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "No Yankee would have held up a light for us to chase him by. That's a decoy! Hard a-port, there! The rebels'd go off before the wind. They can't take in an old hand like me."

Precisely because the Noank had not gone off before the wind, her seemingly safest course, the Solway was not immediately following her. More minutes went by, and then there arose a storm of exclamations on board the seventy-four.

"Captain," asked an excited officer, "did she blow up?"

"No," he gruffly responded. "That's only part of the decoy."

Not all his subordinates agreed with him, however, and it was plainly his duty to carry his ship past the place of the now vanished light and of so tremendous an explosion. He did so grumblingly.

"I know 'em," he said. "It's only some trick or other. They're sharp chaps to deal with, on land or sea. They're a kind of Indian fighters, and they're up to anything. Do you know, I believe we've lost her!"

That was what he had done, or else Captain Lyme Avery had lost the seventy-four, for when the next morning dawned her lookouts could discover no sign of the Noank's white canvas between them and the horizon.