"Heavy schooner, bound in. She won't try it, now you are here."
"All right," came cheerily back; "I saw you send her a pilot. I'll report you."
"Caramba!" shouted Velasquez, in sudden anger. "Report! I hope your American rebels will beat you on land and sea! They have my good will, with all my heart!"
"That's so, I declare!" exclaimed the British officer, lowering his glass. "I might have known it. It's the old grudge between England and Spain. No wonder the Yankees get away from us as they do. All the American colonies are in league together against all Europe. We'll hunt down that Yankee schooner, though, in spite of 'em. Humph! To be snubbed in this way by the skipper of a Barcelona trader! I'll report him! What's the world coming to!"
The Santa Teresa, under very light canvas, was now making her slow way to her wharf, to which her arrival signals had already summoned a growing throng of expectant people. Among these, of course, were the mercantile men who were interested in the ship and her cargo, and many more were the friends and relatives of her crew and passengers. Besides these, there were naval, military, and custom-house officials, and persons who were eager for the latest news from Europe.
As the Santa Teresa floated nearer, hats and handkerchiefs began to wave on board and on the shore. The first words that were sent landward, however, were in the tremendously excited treble of old Señora Paez.
"Praise God!" she called out. "Praise to Our Lady! We were rescued from the pirates! We were saved from death by an American privateer! God bless the Americans and give them their freedom!"
Little she knew and less she cared that her enthusiastic utterances were heard by loyal subjects of the king of England. Hardly a cable's length away was anchored a stout corvette of twenty-eight guns, whose officers and men, up to that moment, had been observing the new arrival quite listlessly.
Instantly, now, there began a stir on board of her, and a boat prepared to put off to the Santa Teresa upon an errand of inquiry. Before it could be lowered, however, the corvette herself was hailed by a boat from the Tigress.
"Up anchor, is it? Yankee trader outside?" was half angrily thrown back at that boat's message. "Ay, ay! we're coming. You may tell Captain Frobisher it isn't any trader. It's one of those Connecticut pirates. We've learned that right here. – All hands away! Up anchor, lieutenant! That old woman has told us what we're going to do."
Swiftly indeed the questions and answers were exchanging between the crowded wharf and the thrilling news-bringers on the Santa Teresa. Loud and repeated were the cheers for los Americanos and their plucky little cruiser. The British consul at Porto Rico was one of the listeners, and he muttered discontentedly: —
"The rebels will get all the help and information they need. Not an English merchant keel in port or due here would be safe if it weren't for the Tigress and the Hermione. Think of it! Six cargoes ready to go out, and they'll all have to run the Yankee gantlet. There may be more than one privateer, you know."
Straight to the wharf steered the Santa Teresa. No sooner was her gang-plank out than her passengers poured over it to be welcomed after the exuberant Spanish fashion.
The Tigress, away out at the harbor mouth, was already under way, and the Hermione would soon follow her. There was a change in the state of feeling on board the frigate, however, after the return of the boat from the corvette.
"A privateer, they say?" said Captain Frobisher. "That's bad. She beat off a pirate for the Spaniard? What do you make of that, Mackenzie?"
"It's easy to read, sir," replied his foxy second in command. "It's as plain as print. The Americans are wiser than we are. They know enough to carry heavy guns. Not many of 'em, I take it, but altogether too much metal for any of these murderous picaroons."
"I'm glad they were, my boy," said the captain, heartily. "I hope they sent the devils to the bottom. I'm afraid we're to have trouble with those fellows, my boy. They can't face our cruisers, to be sure, but they may play havoc with our merchant marine. The admiralty must take severe measures with some of them."
"We'll try and do that ourselves with this one out yonder," said the lieutenant, but his duties called him away, and he did not explain precisely what was in his angry mind concerning the Noank.
That very saucy little man-of-war was not trying to look any further into the guarded harbor of Porto Rico. Vine Avery and his crew had returned with their report of danger. They also reported whatever they had learned of the British merchant craft, and Captain Avery had, therefore, several things to think of.
"Now, Pedro," he said to the Carib pilot, "what next?"
"Run into lagoon to-night," said Pedro. "Noank get through inlet at low water. British ship stick on bar. Schooner come out again when captain say ready. Safe!"
"I understand that," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Our draft will let us in. Almost any British man-o'-war would draw too much."
"No!" replied the Carib; "captain wrong. High water on bar, deep enough for small corvette. All right. British no find channel, Deep water inside reef."
"That's it, is it?" said the captain. "Then the sooner we are through that channel, the better. All sail on, Sam. Let her go!"
The crew had already crowded around Guert Ten Eyck and his friends to hear what they had to tell. There did not seem to be anything like disappointment among them. They had expected to hear of British cruisers here away. They had known, all along, that only by sharp and daring work could they hope to find or capture their intended prizes.
"What do you think, Sam?" asked the captain, as soon as the Noank was once more flying along. "Doesn't this begin to look a little squally?"
"Well, no," said the mate, soberly. "It looks like we'd best lie low for a while, that's all. What I'm thinkin' of is this. What if this Carib's lagoon and the channel into it are known to the British, or if they should be discovered while we're cooped up in there? They'd be sure to come in after us in boats. Most likely they'd come at night. We must make calculations on that."
"That's what we can do," growled the captain. "A boat attack'd stand for hard fightin'. I ain't so sure the chances would be against us. I'll tell you what, Sam Prentice, all that's left of a gang o' boats won't be enough to board and carry the Noank."
"Not if we're watchin'," said Sam.
"We won't stay in any longer'n we can help," said the captain. "I'm hopin' we are to get the right kind of information from the Spaniards."
"Not from their authorities," grimly responded the mate. "They won't do anything to make trouble between them and the British. Porto Rico is buildin' up a prime Liverpool trade just now."
"Sam!" exclaimed his friend, "you don't know human natur'! After a Porto Rico planter has been paid for his sugar, he doesn't care a copper what harbor it goes to. Besides, I'll bet on the Santa Teresa people. I took 'em for the right kind all 'round."
"I'm glad they're safe, anyhow," said Prentice. "That puts me in mind of another thing, Lyme. I kind o' like it that we're not to run into Porto Rico first thing. The Spanish lawyers might put in a claim on Groot and get him shot or hung. I've talked with him. He isn't a bad sort of Dutchman."
"We'll take care of him," said the captain. "Only man we saved. Prime good seaman. He'll be one more first-rate fighter, too, when we need him."
So the Noank sped on, and the two British men-of-war came sailing out of the harbor to chase her.
CHAPTER XII
A PRIZE FOR THE NOANK
"It doesn't take long to see all there is on one of these plantations," said Guert Ten Eyck to himself. "It's the laziest kind of place, though. I haven't seen a man in a hurry since I came here."
He was standing in a wide veranda which ran along the entire front, at least, of a long, two-story, fairly well-built house. There were well-kept gardens, with noble trees and shrubbery, and all the veranda was shadowy with climbing vines. It was the old Paez plantation house, and was also the present home of Señor Alvarez and his family.
"It's all very fine," Guert had remarked of it. "They're as rich as mud, but I wouldn't live here for anything. What if the Noank should manage to get away without me on board of her?"
That was a black idea which seemed almost to make him shudder. He had remained here as a favored guest for over a fortnight. During these days of his Spanish plantation experiences, the Noank had been idly rocking at her anchor in the sheltered cove to which her Carib pilot had steered her.
The two British war-ships had been cruising to and fro in a fruitless search for her, and their commanders were more than a little chagrined at their ill success, for they were firmly convinced that she could not be far away.
Guert had visited the shore, and his friends, in turn, had visited him, to be also liberally entertained at the plantation. Nothing but the great need for secrecy had prevented more extended inland hospitalities to the brave Americanos who had destroyed the picaroon. The highest authorities on the island were quite ready to acknowledge so important a public service, and no Spaniard, official or otherwise, was at all likely to help the British capture the Noank.
Guert had been promised information of any change in the prospect for cruising. He had learned, too, that this kind of lying in ambush was altogether a customary feature of all piracy or privateering among the Antilles. Captain Avery had expected it, and had considered himself fortunate in getting so good a lagoon to lurk in. The Tigress and the Hermione were enemies which it would not do to trifle with. Moreover, he had been kept well advised of the goings on in the harbor of Porto Rico, and he knew all about the English merchantmen who were discharging or taking in cargoes. One subject in particular had greatly interested the young American sailor, for there were a great many dark-skinned laborers upon the Paez and the neighboring plantations.
"If all the slaves are as well treated as they are here," Guert had thought, "they are a great deal better off than they ever were in Africa. I don't want to see any such thing in America, though. I'm sorry it's there. We don't want any more slave trade. Too many of 'em die on the way from Africa."
His ideas, of course, were very raw and incomplete. He was only a boy, and he could not see all of the mischief. He had watched the colored people in their huts, away off behind the plantation house. He had seen them at work in the fields. They seemed to be fat, merry, and not at all discontented. As for their Spanish owners, nothing could be more easy-going and careless than their way of life. Their only apparent difficulty appeared to be in finding something to do. Guert himself found enough, for all this thing was entirely new to him. He enjoyed especially his horseback rides around the country, along forest roads, and into wonderfully lovely nooks of semi-tropical vegetation. He was all the while picking up Spanish words with great rapidity, for there was no other language to be heard, except queer African dialects among the slaves. He progressed all the better, too, because of having made a pretty good beginning before coming there. On the whole, however, his plantation days seemed a long time to look back upon, and here he stood, in the veranda, disposed to consider his situation seriously.
"What!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Could I stay here and think of the Noank being out there in a fight? My own mother'd be ashamed of me, if I did!"
A light hand was on his shoulder, and a soft, kindly voice said to him: —
"My dear young friend! If I were your mother, I should feel as you say she would. I would have my brave son fighting for his country."
"O Señora Paez!" said Guert, whirling to look into her venerable face, "you all have been so good to me! But I cannot stay here while our war for liberty is going on."
Before she could speak again, a loud hail came up to them from the gateway at the road, and a man on horseback dashed in at a gallop.
"Señora Paez," said Guert, excitedly, "it's Vine Avery! Something's happened."
"Guert!" shouted the rider, "we're all ready to sail! Come on! The coast is clear! Come back with me!"
"Hurrah! I'm ready," he began.
"Go, my dear boy!" interrupted the old señora. "I will call them to say good-by to you. I would not detain you if you were my son. It is your duty!"
Quickly enough, the Alvarez household gathered to say farewell to their young guest. They were all brimming with hospitality. They urged him to come again and to consider their house his home. Nevertheless he could see, plainly enough, that not one of them dreamed of detaining him, now. They understood that his post of honor was behind the guns of the Noank, and they would have despised him if he had not felt just as he did.
A horse was brought, and Señor Alvarez himself rode with Vine and Guert to the seashore, less than ten miles away. That distance was galloped rapidly. A boat was at the beach with a sailor from the Noank in it, and in a minute or so more it had three rowers. Loud and sincere were the last grateful farewells from the señor on the beach. As hearty were the good wishes sent back from the boat, but Guert's heart was thrilling as it had not thrilled during all his peaceful weeks at the Paez plantation.
There, yonder, at the mast of his beautiful schooner, floated the stars and stripes, the banner of freedom. There, waiting for him to rejoin them, were his own brave captain and the crew that seemed to him as his kindred. Away out yonder, outside of all these reefs and keys and ledges, was the great ocean.
"Hurrah, Vine!" he shouted. "Hurrah for a cruise and fights and prizes!"
"We're bound to have 'em!" said Vine.
As they pulled along, moreover, he told Guert that one of the sailors of the Santa Teresa had come all the way from Porto Rico in a rowboat to tell Captain Avery a lot of news that the captain had as yet kept to himself.
"It looks to me," said Vine, "as if we had some work all cut out for us."
"That's what we want," said Guert.
"I tell you what, though," said Vine, "the queerest feller on board the schooner is that Dutchman, Groot. He asks after you every now and then. Do you know, he actually ventured to go right into Porto Rico twice. I don't s'pose anybody he saw there suspected him of being a pirate."
"Well," said Guert, "he never was one, exactly. Here we are, Vine. I guess I'll have a talk with him."
The boat was at the side of the Noank, and a score of well-known faces were at the rail.
"On board with you!" called out Sam Prentice. "The anchor's comin' in. There's no time to be wasted."
Other orders followed, and Guert sprang away to his duties feeling a good deal more like himself than if he were watching slaves in a tobacco-field.
Very secure indeed had been that bit of a landlocked harbor on the island coast. Its entrance was a mere narrow canal, so to call it, between dangerous reefs on either side. No deep-draft British vessel could pass through that channel; even the Noank was compelled to take it at high water because of its bars.
"Captain Avery," asked Guert, after delivering the messages of good will from his Spanish friends, "didn't you say that the British might have come in and carried the schooner in boats?"
"Ye-es, I did," drawled the captain. "That's the reason why I anchored her jest in that spot. I kept a sharp lookout, you see, on that there p'int o' rocks yonder. Our guns were kept trained on this channel, all the time. We were all prepared then to knock their boats to flinders as they got in to about here. Not one of 'em'd ever pulled past this 'ere twist in the channel, when it opens into the lagoon."
Guert's question was answered, and he had a higher idea than ever of the remarkable fitness of Lyme Avery to conduct the business of the privateer Noank.
"I see it," he thought. "They'd ha' been smashed by a raking fire at short range. It would ha' been awful!"
The schooner had but little canvas spread as yet, and she picked her way carefully, slowly; but the channel was not a long one, after all.
"Out at sea!" exclaimed Guert, with a long breath of relief, at last. "Seems to me as if I'd been on shore a year. I was getting pretty sick of it."
"Lyme Avery," remarked his mate, as more sails were spreading, "it looks to me as if we were goin' to have a rough night. We'd better git well away from the coast."
"We'll do that," replied the captain, "and we'll run along in the track o' that Liverpool trader. She has pretty nigh a day the start of us."
"I understand that," thought Guert, overhearing them. "We're in for a race. We may be chased ourselves, too. It doesn't look to me as if a storm's coming, but they read weather signs better'n I can."
"Come," said a low voice in his ear; "I want to talk with you."
The summons was spoken in Dutch, such as Guert had been accustomed to hear in old days upon Manhattan Island. Somehow or other the sound of it was very pleasant to him. He turned even eagerly to follow Groot, and was led forward almost to the heel of the bowsprit.
"Now, my boy," said the escaped pirate, "we are by ourselves. I know you like a book. I have talked with Coco and Up-na-tan. They say you know all about their having been freebooters, long ago. They call it Kidd business. Now, I never was really one of that kind, but there are ways for one buccaneer to know another, soon as he sees him, or talks with him."
"Yes," replied Guert, "they say so. It's by handgrips and signs and words. I know some of 'em now."
He and the Dutchman shook hands, and Guert said what he knew.
"That's well enough for a beginning," said Groot, "but you must know it all. It might save your life some day. It saved mine when they captured me. I'll teach you. I mean to keep company with you and those two old fellows. I owe you my life."
"Vine helped, too," said Guert. "I'm glad we hauled you aboard. The sharks were pretty close behind you just then. Oh! But wasn't it awful! I wish we'd saved more of 'em."
"You couldn't," said Groot. "They'd only ha' been turned over to the law, if you had. They were all sharks, too, nearly all. Worst kind. Some weren't quite as bad as the rest, perhaps. Never mind them, now. Let's attend to this business."
Guert was willing enough, although Groot laughed, and said it made a kind of pirate of him.
"We'll practise now and then," he told him. "Now, some wouldn't believe it, but I met more than a score of regular picaroons, living at their ease in Porto Rico. Some of them are rich, too, and don't mean to go to sea any more. For all that, they're always ready to give information or any other help to sea-rovers like themselves."
Guert was all the while learning a great deal, and this addition to his stock of knowledge hardly surprised him.
"I see," he thought. "It's a kind of matter of course. It would be a good deal stranger if it wasn't so. Those that get away rich don't care to run any more risks. Besides, if such fellows hadn't signs and passwords already, they'd set right to work and invent some. Even regular armies have passwords and countersigns, and all the ships have signals."
He was thinking of that sort of thing when the dark came on. The wind was strengthening, and there were clouds rushing across the sky to vindicate Sam Prentice's prophecy concerning the weather.
"He was right, I guess," thought Guert. "Hullo! What's the captain up to?"
Captain Avery was standing at the mainmast, and he had just touched off a rocket that went fizzing up to its bursting place.
"I wonder who'll see it," thought Guert.
Far away in the deepening gloom to leeward, at that moment, the first lieutenant of the Tigress, watching upon her quarter-deck, exclaimed: —
"Captain! One more of our cruisers! She'll come within hail before long. That's it! I hope we're going to be relieved. I'm sick and tired of this West India station."
"So am I!" said the captain, heartily. "Reply to that signal. Give 'em our own number. Draw 'em this way."
His signal officer responded promptly, and more than one rocket went up from the Tigress. Her commander was much chagrined, however, for he received no response to give him the information he expected of the character of the newcomer.
Moreover, as far away from the Noank as he was, but in a directly opposite line, to windward, at the same time, the English skipper of a fine, bark-rigged merchantman, just out from Porto Rico, felt exceedingly gratified. She was a craft of which Captain Avery had no knowledge whatever up to that moment.
"Hey!" shouted the skipper. "See that? One more of our cruisers close at hand, beside the one away off to looard. I'll send up a light to let 'em know where we are."
Captain Avery had not really asked so much of him, but that was precisely what his unnecessary rocket did.
"Lyme!" exclaimed Sam Prentice, as the shining stars fell out of the flying firework from the bark. "I declare! They told us that feller wouldn't sail for three days yet, and there he is. He's goin' to be our surest take, Captain."
"All right," replied the captain. "Not to-night, though. We'll just foller him along till mornin'. Then we'll put a prize crew into him and send him to New London. We're much obliged to him for callin' on us."
"I guess we're sure of him," said Sam, "but we'd better look out for our sticks and canvas, first."
That was what every vessel in that neighborhood was compelled to do during the gale which began to blow.
"She stands it first-rate," said Guert to Up-na-tan, an hour or so later. "Tell you what, though, I feel a good deal better than I did on shore."
"Boy talk Spanish," replied the Manhattan. "Talk him all while. Learn how. Boy not know much, anyhow."
The red man had all along deemed it his duty to impress upon the mind of his young friend the idea that he was only a beginner, an ignorant kind of sea apprentice with all his troubles before him. After that there followed a watch below, another on deck, and then the morning sun began to do what he could with the flying rack of clouds and spray and mist that was driving along before the gale.
"Vine," asked Guert, "has anything more been seen of that trader!"
"Can't you see?" said Vine. "There she is. We're to wind'ard of her, now. She's answering father's signals, first-rate. We owe all that luck to Luke Watts and his private signal-book."
Nevertheless, the skipper of the bark was even then expressing much perplexity of mind as to what the Noank might be and where from. He did not exactly like her style. It was peculiar, he said, as the morning went on and the gale began to subside, that the seemingly friendly schooner, answering signals so well, should keep the same course with himself, all the while drawing nearer.
"She outsails us," he remarked. "We can't get away from her. I wish the corvette or the frigate were in sight."
Both of them had vanished. They had tacked toward Porto Rico and the officers of the Tigress, in particular, were keeping a sharp lookout for the newly arrived British man-of-war that had burned rockets so very promisingly in the night.
"It's all right, Lieutenant," remarked Captain Frobisher. "The gale has carried her along finely. We shall find her in port when we get there."
"I wish we may!" growled the very sharp lieutenant, "but I don't like it. I didn't exactly make out the reading of that second rocket. Perhaps a lubber sent it up. We'll see."
On went the schooner and the bark without any outside observers. Down sank the tired-out gale, and the sun broke through the clouds.
"Coco!" shouted Captain Avery, at last, "haul down that lobster flag and run up the stars and stripes. Vine, give 'em that forward starboard gun. All hands to quarters! 'Bout ship! Men! she's our prize!"
A ringing sound of cheers answered him, and the report of the gun followed. It was a signal for the Englishman to heave to, and her captain dashed his hat upon the deck.
"Caught!" he groaned. "Taken by the rebels! I wish they were all sunk a hundred fathoms deep."
Loud, angry voices from all parts of his ship responded with similar sentiments relating to American pirates, but there could be no thought of resistance. The bark was hove to, and her flag came down in a hurry as if to avoid all danger of further shotted cannonading.
"Ship ahoy!" came loudly across the water. "What bark's that?"
"Bark Spencer, Captain McGrew. Porto Rico for Liverpool. Cargo. No passengers. Who are you?"
The answer settled his mind entirely, and in a few minutes more he had a boat's crew of American sailors on board.
"Captain McGrew," said Captain Avery, glancing around, "I'm glad you've no passengers. I'll find out, first, how many of your fellers I can leave on board with my prize crew, to handle her to New London. Some'd ruther work ship than be crammed under hatches."
The British sailors exchanged nods and glances, and their skipper responded: —
"All right! We're a prize, no doubt. We're insured, so far's that goes. 'Tisn't so bad for the owners. But you'd better tally four chaps that hid in the hold to keep from being 'pressed into the Tigress. They're not deserters, you know, but they'd as lief keep away from havin' to answer questions."
Four stalwart British tars at once stepped forward, and not one of them "peached" to McGrew that their names were already on the rolls of the frigate, so that they were much more than halfway deserters.
"Humph!" said Captain Avery, "I guess I can trust 'em. It saves me four hands. I'll pick out four more. Captain McGrew, you and the rest may come on board the schooner. I'll give you a free passage to France. Treat ye well, too. Hand over your papers. Sam Prentice, this is your trip home."
"All right!" almost roared Sam. "I'll carry her safe in. She and her cargo'll bring us a pile o' shiners. Lyme, she's our first West Injy luck!"
"Hurry up, Sam!" said the captain. "Then I'll try for that feller ahead that led us from Porto Rico. She's along the track, somewhere."