A Middy of the King Part 11

"Very well," said I; "I will be up in a brace of shakes. Just turn up the lamp, if you please, youngster, and let us have a little more light on the subject. Ah! that's better, thanks. Kindly hand me those unmentionables. I say, Mr Dundas, there doesn't seem to be very much wind. What's the weather like?"

"Stark calm, sir; smooth water, and as dark as the inside of a cow,"

answered the lad.

"Does the weather look threatening, then; or what does--? But never mind; those shoes, if you please. Thanks. That will do. Now I am ready. Away you go, youngster."

Preceded by the lad, I pa.s.sed into the fore-cabin and thence up on deck, where, as Dundas had picturesquely intimated, the darkness was profound and the air breathless, save for the small draughts created by the flapping of the great mainsail to the gentle movements of the schooner upon the low undulations of the swell.

As I stepped out on deck I heard Henderson's voice close at my elbow, although the man himself was invisible.

"Sorry to have been obliged to disturb you, Mr Delamere," he said, "but something's happened that I thought you ought to know about."

"Yes?" I remarked interrogatively. "Well, what was it, Henderson?"

"Well, it's like this here, sir," he replied. "We've been becalmed this last hour or more, durin' which the schooner have been boxin' the compa.s.s, while it's been that close and muggy that one don't seem to have been able to get air enough to breathe. And the closeness made me feel so drowsy that, to prevent myself from droppin' off to sleep, I've been obliged to keep on my feet, pacing fore and aft atween the main cabin skylight and the main riggin'. The watch have coiled theirselves away somewheres, and I don't doubt but what they're s.n.a.t.c.hin' a cat-nap--and I haven't troubled to disturb 'em, sir, for the lookout on the fo'c's'le is keepin' his eyes skinned.

"Well, a few minutes ago--it may be five, or it may be ten--I'd just swung round to walk aft from the main riggin' when, as my eyes travelled away out here over the port quarter, I got the notion into my head that there was somethin' goin' on down there, for it seemed to me that I'd got a glimpse--out of the corner of my eye, as it might be--of a small sparkin', like--like--well, hang me if I know what it was like, unless it might be twenty or thirty pistols or muskets all being fired close after one another."

"Ah!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "And did you hear any sound, Henderson--anything like that of distant firing, for instance?"

"No, Mr Delamere; not a sound, sir," answered the gunner. "But then,"

he continued, "that ain't very surprisin' when you comes to think of it, for just listen to what's goin' on aboard here--the old hooker ain't so very noisy, I'll allow; still, what with the rustlin' of the canvas overhead, the patter of the reef-points, the creakin' of the jaws o' the mainboom, the clank o' the wheel-chains, and the wash and gurgle of the water alongside with the roll of her, there's not much chance of pickin'

up sounds comin' from a distance, is there, sir?"

"No, that is true, there is not," I admitted. "Did you see, or hear, anything else, Henderson?" I asked.

"No, sir; never another thing," answered the gunner. "And I'd like ye to understand, Mr Delamere, that I wouldn't care actually to stand up in court and swear that I really saw what I told ye; for, as I explained, I only caught the thing out o' the tail-end of my eye, as it might be, and then 'twas gone again, and I saw nothin' more. But the impression that I really had seen something was so strong that I felt it was my duty to report it."

"Of course; you did perfectly right," I agreed; "particularly in view of the task that has been given us to do. Did the lookout see anything of this appearance of flashes?"

"No, sir," answered Henderson; "he didn't. Nat'rally he wouldn't, for he was keepin' a lookout ahead and on either bow, while this here flas.h.i.+n' showed--if it really did show at all, and wasn't my imagination--out there over the port quarter."

"Quite so," I concurred. "Under those circ.u.mstances he would not be in the least likely to see the appearance. Did it occur to you to take the bearing of the spot where you thought you saw those flashes?"

"Yes, sir, it did," answered Henderson. "I stood, just for a second or two, to see if there was any more comin': and then, not seein' anything, I went straight to the binnacle and took the bearin', which I found to be nor'-west and by west, half west."

With one consent we both walked aft to the binnacle and peered into it.

The schooner had swung several points while the gunner had been spinning his somewhat long-winded yarn, for the bearing which he gave now lay about a point over the starboard quarter. I stared into the blackness in that direction, but could see nothing. Then I got the night gla.s.s and, setting it to my focus, raised it to my eye, pointing it out over the starboard quarter and sweeping it slowly and carefully to right and left. For a minute or two I saw nothing; then, as I swept the tube along what I judged to be the line of the horizon, a tiny smudge of radiance--so dim as to be scarcely more than a suggestion--seemed to float athwart the lenses and was gone again. There is probably nothing in ordinary life much more difficult than to pick up and retain in the lenses of a telescope, levelled by hand, a spark of light so minute and faint as to be invisible to the unaided eye in the midst of the surrounding darkness, and the difficulty is enhanced when the attempt is made from the deck of a small vessel oscillating though ever so gently on the ridges of a long, low-running swell, and for the life of me I could not again find the feeble glimmer that had seemed to swim athwart the instrument, try as I would.

"It is no good, Henderson," I said at last, abandoning the attempt in despair, and handing the telescope over to him. "I am almost certain that for a single instant I caught a faint blur of light away out there; but I cannot find it now. Take the gla.s.s, and see if you can meet with any better success. But verify your bearing before you do so."

The schooner had swung a point or two further round by this time, and the bearing now lay broad over the starboard beam, in which direction Henderson pointed his gla.s.s. Meanwhile Dundas, the mids.h.i.+pman who had called me, had slipped down below and brought his own telescope on deck, and was working away with it, but neither he nor the gunner met with any luck; and I was about to try my hand again when a slight lessening of the intensity of the darkness away down in the eastern quarter indicated the approach of dawn. In those low lat.i.tudes the transition from night to day, and _vice versa_, is extraordinarily rapid, occupying but a few minutes; and, even as we stood watching, the pallor strengthened and spread to right and left and upward, suggesting the stealthy but rapid withdrawal of an infinite number of dark gauze curtains from the face of the firmament, until presently the eastern quadrant of the horizon became visible, the pallid sea showing like a surface of molten lead, sluggishly undulating like the coils of a sleeping snake, while overhead stretched an unbroken pall of dark grey cloud that seemed to promise a drenching downpour of rain before long.

The light from the east stole upward among the clouds and westward along the surface of the sea with amazing rapidity, yet to our impatience its progress seemed exasperatingly slow, for away down in the west the darkness was still profound. And yet, even as we gazed, that darkness seemed to become diluted, as it were, with the advancing light that we could almost see sliding along the surface of the water, until suddenly, as though emerging from an invisible mist, a ghostly object appeared, grey and elusive, against the background of darkness, and with one voice we all three shouted:

"There she is?"

Yes, there she was--a large s.h.i.+p, about seven miles away, lying becalmed, like ourselves, with all plain sail set, to her royals and flying-jib. For perhaps half a minute after our first sight of her the light was too weak and uncertain to enable us to discern details; but as we kept our telescopes persistently bearing upon her, first one distinctive feature and then another became revealed.

"She's a full-rigged s.h.i.+p, lying broadside-on to us, Mr Delamere,"

announced young Dundas.

"So I perceive," I returned somewhat dryly. "And I notice, also, that she has swung with her head to the southward."

"She's a big lump of a craft, not very far short of 900 tons, I should say," commented Henderson, with his eye still glued to the eye-piece of the schooner's gla.s.s. "And," he continued, after a slight pause, "I reckon she's a foreigner; that high p.o.o.p and them deep-curvin'

headboards never took shape in a British s.h.i.+pyard, I'm prepared to swear to that. Looks to me like a Dutchman. What do you think, Mr Delamere?"

"I agree with you that she is undoubtedly a foreigner," answered I; "but I don't think she is Dutch--there is too much gilding and gingerbread-work about her quarters for that. There,"--as the sun broke through the clouds and showed his upper rim above the horizon, flas.h.i.+ng a long, level beam along the surface of the water, striking the stranger and causing the stern of her to blaze into a sudden flame of glittering radiance--"do you see that, Henderson? Her quarter is a solid ma.s.s of painted and gilded carving. The Dutchman is too economical, too fond of the dollars to lavish so much gold-leaf as that on the adornment of his s.h.i.+p; he prefers to put the money into extra bolts and fastenings. No; that fellow is a Spaniard, or I'm greatly mistaken!"

"Spaniard, or Dutch, or French, it don't make much difference to us, Mr Delamere," answered the gunner, as he replaced the telescope in the beckets; "she'll give us a nice little bit o' prize-money as soon as the breeze comes and enables us to run down alongside her."

"Ay, that she will--if she doesn't happen to be a man-o'-war--and I don't believe she is," I answered, as I again levelled my gla.s.s at her.

"No," I continued, "she is no man-o'-war, although I see she shows a set of teeth; but there are not many of them, they are all small pieces, and half of them may be quakers, for what we can tell to the contrary. She is a Spanish West Indiaman, I believe, bound, no doubt, to Cartagena, or some other port on the Main; and she has probably come in through the Handkerchief, or Turks Islands Pa.s.sage. Well, there does not seem to be much chance of the wind coming just yet, Henderson, so you had better get your head-pump rigged and muster your scrubbers; meanwhile I will have my bath, as usual, and then get dressed, so as to be all ready by the time that the breeze comes."

When eight o'clock and breakfast-time arrived there was no perceptible change in the aspect of the weather, which remained stark calm; while the heavy pall of cloud that had shrouded the night sky had thinned away to a kind of dense haze in the midst of which the sun throbbed--a great shapeless splotch of misty light that, notwithstanding its partial veiling, still contrived to impart a scorching quality to the breathless atmosphere.

As I ascended to the deck after breakfast I found Pearce, the boatswain, whose watch it now was, apparently waiting for my reappearance. He held the schooner's gla.s.s in his hand, and had evidently spent practically the whole time since eight bells in watching the stranger.

"I've been thinkin', Mr Delamere," he began, "how would it be to get the boats out and go after that chap? We could do it quite comfortable--take possession of her, leave a prize-crew aboard her, and get back to the schooner again before dinner."

"No doubt," I agreed. "But why should we trouble to get the boats into the water and fatigue the men by a long pull in this sweltering heat?

That s.h.i.+p can't get away from us without wind; and if I am any judge of the looks of a vessel we shall walk up to her as if she were at anchor as soon as the breeze comes. She is a good seven miles away, a pull of an hour and a half at the least in this weather, and at the end of it the men would be too tired to face resistance effectively, if it were offered--as it very possibly might be. No, I really do not see any necessity to dispatch the boats, just yet at least; do you?"

"Well, 'pon my word, Mr Delamere, I don't know," answered Pearce, scratching his head with a puzzled air. "The way you puts it there don't seem to be no sense at all in doin' of it. And yet, I don't know, sir. The fact is, I'm a bit puzzled about that there s.h.i.+p. Here are we, regularly boxin' the compa.s.s, our jibboom pointin' first this way, then that, and then t'other, while that s.h.i.+p haven't veered nothin' to speak of all the time that I've been on deck; she've pointed steady to the south'ard ever since I first set eyes on her, and it seems to me that she've altered her bearin's a bit. I suppose it ain't likely that she've got her boats into the water, towin' on t'other side of her, have she?"

"Good gracious, man, no, surely not!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "What in the world should they do such a mad thing as that for? What effect would two, or even three, boats have on a big heavy s.h.i.+p like that? They could never hope to tow her below the horizon and out of sight of us before the wind comes; and, if not, why should they tire themselves to death by making such an attempt? I admit that it is rather strange that her head should point so steadily in one direction while we are boxing the compa.s.s; but she probably draws twice as much water as we do, and that may have something to do with it."

I took the telescope from Pearce's hands and again levelled it at the stranger. She was still lying broadside-on to us, showing us her port side, and her yards were braced sharp up on the starboard tack, as though--a.s.suming her to have come in through one of the pa.s.sages--she had had a wind from the westward, while the breeze which had brought us where we were had been from the eastward. The peculiarity of this now struck me for the first time, but it carried no particular significance to my mind beyond the suggestion that possibly she might, after all, be homeward instead of outward bound. But as I stood scanning her through the lenses it gradually dawned upon me that her people seemed to be extraordinarily busy, for I could detect indications that quite a large number of men were actively moving about her decks; and presently, to my astonishment, I noticed that she had a tackle at her mainyard-arm; and while I was still wondering what this might be for, I saw a large case rise slowly above the level of her bulwark and then vanish again, apparently over her rail.

Then, in a second, illumination came to me and I understood everything.

There was a craft of some sort alongside her, completely hidden from our view by her hull and canvas, braced as sharp up as possible, and undoubtedly there were boats in the water on the other side of her, employed to keep her broadside-on to us and thus keep the other craft hidden from us; moreover, certain portions of her cargo were being hoisted out and transferred to the hidden vessel. The inference was obvious: the hidden craft was a pirate which had somehow managed to sneak up alongside and surprise her in the pitchy darkness of the early hours of the morning--Henderson had actually caught a glimpse of the very act of capture--and now she was being plundered by the audacious scoundrels under our very eyes.

I laid down the gla.s.s and looked sharply round the horizon. The atmosphere was distinctly thickening, to such an extent, indeed, that the sun was now almost blotted out, and there was a greasy look about the sky that seemed to portend bad weather. The sea was still gla.s.s-smooth, not the faintest suggestion of a catspaw to be seen in any direction; but there was a certain gloomy, lowering appearance over the western horizon that appeared to promise a breeze before long. It might be hours, however, before it came, and we could not wait for it; for robbery, and very possibly violence, ay, even cold-blooded murder, was being perpetrated at that moment, and speedy intervention was imperative. I felt horribly vexed that we should all have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked so completely; for although the device was undoubtedly quite clever, the conviction would insist upon forcing itself upon me that I had attached altogether too little importance to the gunner's story of those mysterious flashes, seen "out of the corner of his eye." I told myself that that story ought to have aroused my suspicions, ought to have conveyed a distinct suggestion to my mind; and that, if it had, we should have detected the ruse almost with the first appearance of daylight. This, however, was not the moment for reproaches, either of myself or others, it was the moment for action; and I turned sharply upon the boatswain.

"Mr Pearce," I said, "on the starboard side of that s.h.i.+p there is another craft, completely hidden from us by the hull and canvas of the stranger, and cargo is being hoisted out of the one and transferred to the other. That means that an act of piracy is being perpetrated; and we have been commissioned for the express purpose of suppressing piracy.

It is as likely as not that the hidden craft is the identical vessel that we have been sent out to capture, but in any case our duty is clear; we must get up within striking distance and interfere without a moment's loss of time. Now, the question in my mind is this: Should we man and arm boats, and send them away; or should we rig out our sweeps and attempt to sweep the schooner up to the scene of action? Under ordinary circ.u.mstances I should be for dispatching the boats; but I don't quite know what to make of the weather. There is no sign of a breeze in any direction at the present moment, but that lowering appearance away to the westward may mean wind; and if it does, it may come down very strong. Should it do so, it would bother the boats, and enable the pirates to slip away; on the other hand, the wind may not come away for several hours yet. This is one of those occasions when experience is valuable, and I shall be glad to have your opinion as to which plan is the better."

Pearce, meanwhile, had been peering through the gla.s.s again; but when I finished speaking he laid it down and turned to me.

"'Pon my word, Mr Delamere, it's very difficult to say," he answered.

"While you've been talkin' I've been lookin' at that s.h.i.+p away yonder, and I believe, sir, as you're right about there bein' another craft alongside of her, although they've so managed things that they might ha'

stayed all day as they are without our bein' any the wiser, if we hadn't kept on watchin' 'em. Yes; it's a hact of piracy, right enough, I haven't a doubt; and, as you says--what's the best thing to be done?"

He paused and gazed earnestly toward the increasing appearance of thickness and greasiness in the western quarter, carefully studying its aspect for a full minute or more; then he turned to me again.

"I don't like the look of it at all, Mr Delamere," he said. "There's bad weather brewin' yonder--I'm sure of it--but how long it'll be before it comes no man can say; it may be hours, or it may be on us within the next half-hour or so. What does the barometer say?"

We both stepped to the open skylight and peered down through it at the barometer, which hung in gimbals from the fore transom. The mercury was falling rather rapidly.